Misconception
by chezchuckles
Summary: tumblr prompt: They slept together after Ryan's wedding but never talked about it. Kate finds out she is pregnant but doesn't know how to tell him, especially after the events of 47 seconds (and Limey).
1. Chapter 1

**Misconception**

* * *

**anonymous** asked:

They slept together after Ryan's wedding but never talked about it. Kate finds out she is pregnant but doesn't know how to tell him, especially after the events of 47 seconds.

* * *

**A/N:**I didn't know, when I had the urge to write something for this prompt, that it would take off quite like it has. I have five scenes so far, this being the first, and I will post more as the vagaries of life allow, but I don't have a plan here, and I don't have a endpoint in mind. It is my intent to keep away from Dash as much as possible, so if it happens to fall into those lines, I will endeavor to knock it askew. Which might mean it goes strangely to your way of thinking, but I ask for forbearance and forgiveness, and let's see what happens.

I set this directly after Limey.

Thanks to **allyinla** on tumblr for the title. You totally win.

* * *

_Misconception_

**X**

Fun.

And uncomplicated.

That is really not Kate Beckett, is it? He has run as far from her as he possibly could. _Sprinted_.

And in her most delirious, pain-med-induced hallucinations after being shot, Richard Castle walking away from her with a blonde on his arm and his child foraging like a hungry mouth inside her - while, yes, accurate to his persona on Page Six - is nothing she ever saw coming. Knocked up and abandoned.

_Little incubus_, she murmurs, not sure who she's talking about. Or to. And damn - succubus if it's a girl.

Beckett rubs briskly at her face and scrapes her hair back, lets out a fortifying breath.

All right, well. She's an adult; they are both adults, contrary to his recent behavior. He loves his daughter and he would be hurt if she decides to say nothing. So she _has_ to say something, but-

Three months. Three of nine, a third of the way over already, and she's not fun and she's so complicated, and this is just making it worse. Talk about complicated. Talk about not fun. A baby is not the way to fix mistakes.

This is why a couple of vodka martinis and that dance floor at the Ryans' wedding (and the shoes that tipped her forward and forced her to take them off so that she fit exactly right against him during the slow ones, so that she pushed up on her toes to whisper in his ear _let's get a room_) were all very bad ideas.

They were waiting; there's that wall, and she's bricked up, she's not who she should be yet. Except she wanted it right then, wanted to not feel so lonely in the work, and three months later, here they are, incredibly complicated.

There's a wall, and she's going to have to do some serious renovation to let this kid _out_ in six more months.

Her hands are trembling.

But she has to do this.

Kate raises her fist and knocks like a cop on his door.

X

When he opens, the scowl deepens, the shadows cluster at the corners of his mouth. "What do you want, Beckett?"

_Alimony_.

No. God, that nearly came out of her mouth. That is not the way to tell him this news. Instead, she folds the ultrasound into her palm, tucks it up close as if to protect it, and she goes entirely off-script.

"I had to be sure before I wrote this off," she says, voice firm. "If not for me, then for..." _ You, little thing._

"I'm pretty sure I've already heard the ending."

Her concentration startles back to him. "Perhaps. But there's something you deserve to know."

"You _think_?" he snarls. She's not even inside his door yet, but he finally steps back and gestures brusquely with a hand. The sarcasm evident in that sweep of his arm is acidic. "I already heard, Beckett. Secondhand, I might add, which is pretty low of you-"

She freezes. "Secondhand?" Who could possible have told? No one knows - _no one._ But three months, three months is a long time and he watches her so closely, so observant, has always pulled out that trick and pummeled her with it. "I don't know how you could have."

"I heard, all right? I heard you in the interrogation room. You told a _suspect_ before breathing a word of this to me."

She didn't tell a suspect, did she? Surely that didn't bleed through. She frowns, palm sweating where it touches the ultrasound photo; the paper clings to her skin. It all feels a little desperate, so she tries to slow this down. "I don't recall ever mentioning-"

"As if fleeing the hotel room that morning like it's the scene of a crime doesn't speak volumes? You tried to tell me then, you're right. I should have known. Stupid of me, _optimistic_ of me, thinking maybe I just jumped the gun and you'd come back given time."

"Come... back?" she says faintly. "When was I gone?"

Castle's face looks struck.

She shakes her head and tries to make sense of this. "I'm not sure we're talking about the same things here. What suspect? The interrogation-"

Her stomach drops. Kate presses the heel of her hand to her sternum, blinking. "Oh. Oh, I..."

"I got the message, Kate. Loud and clear. I should have that morning after Ryan's wedding, and that's on me."

He got the message? "But. You went out with that woman..."

"What?" he snarls. "I can't have a little fun?" _While he waits_.

"I never thought you were that kind of guy." She frowns, curls her fingers down over her stomach, realizes what she's doing and drops her hand. The ultrasound is in the other hand, secret and safe. If she thought she could get away with never seeing him again - doing this on her own - she would leave. Escape.

Escape with her dignity intact, if not her heart. "Just like the hotel."

"Exactly," he snarls. "Everything has to be your way, is that it? Because you got shot, you get to dictate all the rules. Well, I'm done, Kate."

She nods slowly, mind turning over. He's such a good father, but if he - if he _hates_ her this much, how can he filter that out when confronted with a child? Would he ever be able to _not_ see her mistakes in their - mistake?

This is such a mess.

Kate presses her lips into a line and takes a breath, surprised that it still comes, that her lungs haven't collapsed just like her heart.

"Right," she says, nodding again. "Well, that's it, then. I had to be sure, I guess, before I said anything. Get a true answer."

"You always do. Can't possibly step out on blind faith, can you? Can't possibly just _believe_ for once. You always have to be so sure. Well certainty isn't a given for anyone, Kate. No one gets that."

All right, well, this is getting confusing and he's angry - and does a three-month-old fetus have ears? Probably so.

She drags her eyes back to him, finally looking, finally ready to face it. And yes, he's terribly hurt, and angry, and he doesn't want to listen to her; she can see that.

_I left you a note_, she thinks. But obviously, that wasn't enough. She can never find adequate words, now or then, though she thought her note had left room for - for them. Obviously, he's done with waiting. He got her out of his system and that's really all it was good for. She knows now, too. She won't keep after him, and she can't imagine a situation more miserable, clinging to a man because of a baby.

But she can't pretend like nothing has happened. He still deserves to know.

Kate opens her hand with the ultrasound, unfolds it, smooths it out, her heart catching at the little blurs of digital limbs. "This is your copy. I won't - expect you, expect anything. But I'm done shutting everyone out. Can't really, anymore, can I?" She presses the ultrasound into his hand. "Just - um..." Shit, her heart is breaking. This is a lot harder than she thought. "Just don't take this one out of school for a Paris field trip, and we'll be good, okay?"

She tries to laugh, and she leaves the sweat-curled photo in his palm, and she turns for the door. Quickly. She needs out of here before the knot in her throat wells up in her eyes.

"Kate. _What the hell is this_?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Rick Castle stares down at the photo in his hand, realizing a moment later that he's instinctively snagged Beckett by the wrist to keep her from leaving.

"No," he says raggedly. "No, I am _not_ doing this again."

Her face twists, lips crooked and eyes closing, and he hears it - too late - hears what that sounded like.

"No, I'm not letting you walk out - again - on the best night of my life. You _stay_, Beckett."

She swallows, and her eyes cast off, desperately, as if she can't bear to look at him. "You don't - it's not required-"

"Did you not _hear me_?" he growls, jerking on her arm. He's being too rough, losing his cool; he's losing it, but there is just so _much_ to lose. "Best nights of my life - and both of them you seem to think are mistakes."

Her chin jerks around, eyes snapping to his - there's that fire, that flint and tinder coming together. He feels a fraction of relief, realizes he was having trouble breathing.

He releases her wrist, but he shifts to put his body between her and the door. "You don't love me, that's fine. But you don't get to drop a bomb like that, some melodramatic garbage, and then leave."

Her whole face goes comically, hilariously blank. Like a cartoon, like it's just been wiped right off and redrawn right in front of him. Her eyes reanimate first. Like bubbles of air rising up in muddy river water, proof of the life lurking below the surface. "I don't - I don't what?" And then she laughs, something giddy - no, not that - something _hysterical_ in it.

Hysteria - (Latin) of the uterus.

Oh, God.

"You're pregnant," he says, dumbly, ice water slapping him cold and shocking.

"I don't _love_ you?" she croaks, claps a hand over her mouth, shakes her head. "Of all the ridiculous - yes, I'm pregnant, and yes, it's _yours_, so don't even ask."

"I wasn't. I didn't." He frowns, shoots her a glare. "Of course it's mine."

That sharp stain of angry pink drains out of her face just that fast. "Why would you say that?"

He presses the ultrasound against his chest. He recognizes the gesture as claiming, protective, but it's all he has, all she'll give him. "Say what? Because of course it's true. I'm not dismissing your - your claim. No need for a paternity test, I fully-"

"No, why would you say I don't love you?"

His mouth opens, empty, closes again, staring at her.

"Wait," she murmurs, pressing a hand to her eyes. "Oh, God, the interrogation. That's what you - that's what you've been talking - yelling at me about?"

His tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth.

"Because I used my getting shot to work a suspect? How is that news to you? Interogation 101, Castle. Anything to connect-"

"You said you knew," he blurts out, interrupting with the awful acid thing that's been burning a hole in his heart for weeks now. "You remembered every moment."

"I remem-" Her mouth snaps shut.

"If you didn't know how to tell me, I would have left you alone, you know. Contrary to popular belief. There was no need for you to give me a pity fuck-"

"God, you are such a moron," she groans, spinning on her heel and stalking away from him. He moves, helplessly orienting to her true north, but she jerks back around and thrusts an accusing finger at him. "You. Are. A _moron -_ Rick Castle. Do I _look _like I give out pity fucks?"

He jerks back.

"No," she hisses. "I do not. I-"

"_You_ left me." His nostrils flare in the effort it takes to not break. "I woke up and you were gone. And then I hear you - confessing everything to a murder suspect - and what do I get? Nothing. Not a word. But you have problem spilling your guts to a suspect."

"I left you a note," she says, a strange bewildered hurt tumbling in her eyes.

No. She doesn't get to be _hurt_. He's the one wounded, stripped bare, left naked on the morning after to wake alone (thinking, stupidly, she went to get us coffee, she'll be right back, she didn't, couldn't possibly, have thought that meant nothing). "You left me a note? What are you talking about? I said, _call me_, and you said you would and I got nothing all summer, and then-"

"No, the summer - after the wedding. At the hotel. I left you a note, Castle."

"What?" He scrubs a hand down his face, hard. "A note. No. There was no _note._ There was no note!"

She stares at him. "There was too."

"Then what did it _say_?"

She answers immediately, and with such clear precision that he knows the truth of it before she even finishes speaking. "'Now we both know what we're waiting for.'"

A terrible kind of grief clutches him and his hands curl into fists - but his fingers catch on the ultrasound and his eyes drop, inexorably, to the gray and black that is-

"A baby," he says.

She lets out a breath. "That wasn't what I meant by waiting."

He chokes on a laugh and his eyes jerk up to see her - _see _her - really look. She's not looking back; she's definitely not happy, but it's not just latent anger and frustration. Her eyes are smudged, as if inexpertly drawn, and her mouth in a tight line; her fingers knot and smooth, over and over.

She's unhappy.

She's terribly unhappy.

"Beckett."

She reluctantly looks at him.

"I won't take the kid out of school for field trips to Paris, promise." Her shoulders go up, defensive, but he's holding onto that flippant remark of hers like it too is a promise. A promise that the baby is _happening_, that she's already made her choice. "Not unless you're coming with us, that is."

"I don't have the vacation time," she murmurs, aimless, still miserable-looking. Twisting and knotting her fingers at her sides.

He wonders if that's his answer. No, Castle, I don't have the vacation time. My life won't accommodate yours. We don't fit. This will never work.

He ducks his head to look at the ultrasound photo, wonders if this is as close as he's going to get. Will she let him be there for the birth? Meredith had a c-section and said emphatically _no_ and he didn't know how to force the issue, and then Alexis was in his arms and what did he care at all?

He cares. He needs- "I can keep this?" At all, _at all_ can he keep this?

She clears her throat. "You're not willing to wait, I get it; you've made that abundantly clear. But you're a good dad, and you deserve - no, not you - _this baby_ deserves a good dad, no matter how I, how difficult it is for me to see you with her or anyone else-"

"What are you talking about?" he says, horror spilling through his chest. He grabs for her wrist because he can _see_ her slipping away from him; in her eyes, she's setting herself adrift, his light going out in her.

And then it dawns in him, like knowledge itself can be transferred from one person to another, skin to skin, his fingers around her wrist clueing him in.

"You think I could stop loving you? It's not a _switch_. I have tried, I have tried to walk away from you, Kate Beckett, more than once, but you make it impossible to go anywhere without you."

X


	3. Chapter 3

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

"Oh."

It pops out of her mouth so stupidly, a breath really, astonishment suffusing the sound. She stares at him, captivated by the hard-edged frustration carved into his face. He - tried to walk away; he was trying to walk away but - he couldn't?

He slides the ultrasound into the pocket of his shirt, over his heart, and her own flutters strangely. She's going to have a baby with him.

"So how about we start this conversation over?" he says carefully. He reaches out to her as if approaching a wild animal, and he circles his fingers around her wrist very slowly.

Her bones feel bruised, but his touch is light this time, gentle. He tugs.

She stumbles forward, still mentally tripped up more than anything. He's barely hanging on to her. Barely hanging on.

"The couch, come sit," he says. His voice is low and even, soothing; she feels patronized but grateful for it too, for the way he's taken over, extending an olive branch. Peace, peace, and that must make her the dove.

She's jumbled; this doesn't make sense. What she thought, what her heart knew, is not what she sees before her now. She's completely at a loss. She didn't come to his loft expecting to - to win him back (did she ever have him?). She came to confront his anger, to acknowledge the wounded air, and to simply fulfill a duty.

He should know about the baby. She thinks that if it's possible, a baby deserves to know two parents, even if those two can't ever seem to find the same page.

"Kate? Please. Please, sit. Start over?"

He's hovering. She glances down and sinks to the couch, perching on the edge, her hands tucked between her knees. "I'm not sure how."

"Okay, you're right. Maybe starting over isn't possible. But - can you tell me - why?"

She blinks and glances up at him. "Castle, if I have to explain how babies are made-"

He laughs. God, it's been entirely too long since she's seen him laugh and it breaks something open inside her. Spills warmth down through her limbs and makes her fingers awaken, as if parts of her have been asleep.

"Not necessary," he says, smile lopsided, eyes lightening. "Though if you want to, I bet that lesson would be hot."

She bites the corner of her lip and slants her eyes over at him, but she knows she's still smiling back. She can't help it. She's not even scared any more, though it might come later. There's just too much relief.

He's laughing; they can talk. He's laughing; this isn't broken beyond repair.

"Why did you lie?" he says.

Her relief sinks like lead.

His agitation rises to the surface, his eyes hooded. "You could have… done _anything_ else. You could have said, _I don't want to talk about it_. And I'd have done what I always do, Kate. I'd have waited. I'd have at least hoped. Had hope."

She nods, head ducking down, but it reminds her of therapy, a posture of defense under revelation. And just as she does in therapy, she sets her jaw and lifts her chin and battles back with sarcasm. "I feel like I need my therapist for this," she mutters.

(And she's supposed to be a _parent_? God, it's a train wreck; she's already failing. And now she's terrified, and she's not alone in this, and that's worse somehow, knowing she's dragged him into her broken, terrible mess, just what she didn't want to do in the first place, and not just him, but a _baby_-)

"Therapist?" he croaks.

She blinks.

"You're seeing a therapist?"

"Ye-es," she gets out.

"Oh." Castle sinks inward, as if collapsing on himself, and she curls her fingers, clasping her own hands.

This was a mistake; she should have gone to Dr Burke first, gotten some advanced training on how to have an adult conversation. Some pointers. Rehearsed it.

"Does it help?"

Kate lifts her gaze to his, and all that on-edge defensiveness in her just crumbles at the look on his face.

How wounded he is. Has been. _I could have had hope._ She didn't even give him that; she hasn't managed to even give him _hope._

"It's been helping," she qualifies, picking her words more carefully. "It's work. And at least now I have guidance where the work should begin."

She can tell that he has words back there, words on his tongue he's not saying; he keeps opening his mouth and closing it again, unable to settle on any of them.

This was her choice, wasn't it? She chose this path for them (if there's a them at all). She chose waiting, and the dimming of hope, and then she chose to be selfish one night and take everything he offered even though she knew she wasn't the _more_ that could stand up with him, not then, not ready, not even able to stay the morning with him and be reasonable and talk about it.

Well, now she has to talk. "I told you - that day on the swings - I'm not willing to cheat us out of what could be something great, something amazing. And you said - I thought you said, anyway, that you understood and you would still be here…" Did he really say that? And should she at all hold him to promises made without real knowledge of what the keeping of them would entail? She hasn't been fair. And it's not like they said it in any real words-

"I'm still here," he says.

"Right," she nods, and even she can hear the skepticism in her voice.

"I was trying not to be here," he admits, rubbing both hands on the tops of his thighs. And then he crushes his hands into fists. His mouth twists and his eyes - oh God, his eyes are terrible with grief. "I was trying to get over you because it looked like I had it all wrong, that I was reading into things. I - uh - I have an overactive imagination, you know, and the last few weeks - months - have conspired to prove that, once more, I am inventing the world I want rather than the world that exists."

"No," she cries out, clutching her elbows. "No, it's not - an invention. Is it?"

He shakes his head. "Is it? A story I wrote to make myself feel better."

"No." She clears her throat, panic rising. "No, you didn't make it up. I'm in love with you."

**X**


	4. Chapter 4

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

"In," he repeats dumbly. "_In_ love with me. You're in love with-" He gapes, entirely astonished, words failing, because he just convinced himself he's been convincing himself and now he has to re-convince himself.

God, she looks absolutely terrified.

"Me," he finishes lamely, and that's what does it. Turns the key. Bridges the chasm that has existed between the Then and Now, between Maybe She Might Someday and You've Been Fooling Yourself, so that everything meets flush and true, the overlay exact.

She's knotting her fingers, but she lifts her chin. "I'm a little - worried - that this is what has you most surprised and not - the baby."

His face breaks wide with instantaneous joy; he reaches out and hauls her across the too-long length of the couch and up against him. He knows he's squeezing too tightly, knows he's crushing her. "The baby," he echoes. "The baby - we made a baby."

She chokes out a noise that might be a laugh if he wasn't holding her so tightly. He has to release his grip just to see her face, and though it's clouded, she does seem a little bit - maybe a little bit excited.

"Castle… um, are we - or is there still maybe the chance you would - I mean, we can work on it, right? It doesn't have to be today, because it's clear I've messed up somehow, really badly, if you thought you'd made it up - I mean, you knocked me up, for God's sake, how can than have been made up-"

"Beckett, what are you talking about?" he chuckles, still on that rushing up-swing towards giddiness. It makes his voice lack substance, like he has too much air. "I don't even know half the things we've said to each other."

He glances at her and expects to find a similar amusement, a way to laugh and put it all behind them. But that's not on her face; in fact, nothing clear at all is on her face. She is such a self-contained vessel. She holds herself apart even with his arms wrapped around her. Stiff. Unyielding. She wasn't that way that night in the hotel after Ryan's wedding. She was-

She frowns. "I just mean do you still want me? Because I want you. But it's gone on too long now and-"

"What?" he croaks. "What would make you - no, no more of this talking without saying anything. Let's clear this up. I want you. Yes. I already said - but maybe you just didn't believe me - so here it is: I love you. Still. Still do, can't make it stop. I don't want to not love you because it's a wasteland. A void that opens up without you. And - hey, let's get married."

"_What_?" Her mouth has dropped open, her body jerking back.

He beams. "Yes. It's perfect. And - the baby-" Just _saying_ 'the baby' makes his heart pound so hard. The _baby_. "Why keep holding back? We're good together. We're perfect together-"

"Castle." Plaintive. As if she's saying, _stop messing around._

"I'd like to think-" and then he stops, because, really, isn't that what got him here in the first place? _I'd _like to imagine, _I_ would like to believe. "Never mind. That's a dumb thing to say. Right. Let's go with - when you said at Ryan's wedding, maybe the third time's the charm, I got these really vivid images, visions, of being the one - the one you walked down that aisle towards. Being - the one."

She opens her mouth, closes it.

"Think about it," he insists. And then because it's already so much, "Think about it?"

"I…"

"Because I kind of got the impression you already had, at some point, been thinking about it, maybe imagining it too, and that was the point of us waiting, so that it was a solid foundation for - for marriage," he finishes, feeling stupid now. She's looking at him like this is entirely a shock and he really did think she wanted this too.

Wow, he has been wrong at every turn. So wrong. He's assumed quite a lot here, and maybe _I'm in love with you_ has some conditions or limitations on it in _her_ mind that it doesn't for him. He marries when he's in love, quite obviously. He has two previous marriages that say that's his m.o. So marrying for love is probably a really, really stupid thing to do. Two strikes, Rick.

Think of something better.

"I mean, you're pregnant," he gets out. "And the baby - isn't that enough of a reason to get married?"

She narrows her eyes. "Like that worked out so well for you before."

His heart plummets.

Kate claps her hands over her mouth, sitting up straight, horror racing across her face.

He nods, swallowing the ache in his throat. "Yeah, no. You're right. You're - I definitely don't want a repeat of that disaster." He feels nasty. "I'm not sure I could handle seeing you on your knees with your director. Or whatever the equivalent is. Espo."

"I'm so sorry," she rushes out. "Oh, God. That is not what I meant to say."

_Sorry_ really doesn't fix that kind of - and well, now he gets it, right? "But you make some good sense," he says, offering a smile. It's hard to pull off. He's not sure he did pull it off. "That's a really good point. We're still pretty - our communication isn't so great. And getting married when we're already this messed up…"

Well this just sucks.

This is not beautiful or joyful or anything. This is just one wound after another, and you would think he's figured it out by now. That he would just stop risking himself for love because the hurt is just - it sours everything.

After his messy divorce with Gina, he really ought to have learned, but instead he turned around and fell in love with the first woman to test him. A detective whom he has knocked up and is all wrong for and yet, here he turning himself inside out for her.

"Okay, yes. Yes, Castle, marry me."

**X**


	5. Chapter 5

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Kate holds her breath.

His mouth opens and then slams shut, a grim determination in his eyes. So she opens _her _mouth to salvage what she's blundered into _(marriage?_), but he holds up a finger.

"Wait a second. Wait right here."

And then she's gaping after him as he extricates himself from the couch and runs off, back towards his office (his bedroom?) and away from her.

Well, that was really stupid.

She just - basically told him he's terrible at marriage and then demanded he marry her anyway. She is so bad at this, so fundamentally bad at this. Her therapist could have _warned_ her, could have said, _Kate, think about perhaps not opening your mouth; write it down first._ Not that writing it down would have given any better idea what to say.

_I'm pregnant, it's yours, I want it, do you?_ That was really the extent of her thinking. That was all she had to go on, because he's been so hurtful lately, because he's been acting like she's nothing to him-

And oh, that's because of _her._

Because he's been trying not to love her, he said. Because she lied about what she remembers and she ran away that night before the dawn even hit her face, and because putting those two things together seems pretty bad, pretty dire, actually, so no wonder that's what he thought.

So they're a wash. Is that it? They tried it and they don't work, and unfortunately, this kid will have to bear the consequences. Or - well, she will. Because he's a good father and she would never keep him from his kid, and she'll have to see him every day of this kid's life, see him and know she messed it up, that it could have been really great because they did love each other, they do, but it's not enough.

It's not enough.

She should leave.

She half stands, but her legs are wavering as she remembers the whole point of this.

She can't leave. There's a baby. And that has to be - settled somehow. A schedule or a calendar, a tentative agreement or some kind of truce. She's already set the next appointment and she should at least tell him when it is, even if the idea of listening to the heartbeat with him there is about as soul-crushing a thing as she can imagine.

Rick Castle with her but not in any way she can have.

"Kate."

She glances up, swiping at her eyes, and she knows that she must look a huddled, pathetic mess on his couch. She feels pathetic. She feels like the character in one of those melodramatic Gothic novels who can't seem to fight for herself or love or anything.

And that is not her. She's not that person. So no more. _No more._

Kate jerks to her feet, and her old instinct to run is so finely ingrained in her muscles that she actually makes a faltering step in the direction of the door before she can manage to stop herself. No running. Running is actually impossible now; she's anchored to him in a way that neither of them can refuse.

She twists back and paces towards him, and she grabs his hand in both of hers (momentarily startled by the width of his palm and the thickness of his fingers, sense memory of a night in a hotel, time stolen out of time-)

"Kate? I was just going to-"

"Stop," she rushes out. "I've done a really terrible job of this. And I think I-" She shakes her head, squeezes her eyes shut, promises herself she's going to stop prevaricating, stop padding her sentences with all these conditions and concessions and hesitations. She's just _going _for it_._ "I know that I hurt you. I've hurt you. You hurt me too; that's life. But - but it's a life I want. It's better with you, even when it hurts me, and that was never something I thought I would ever say and _mean._ So - well, yay for therapy, right?"

His fingers flex in hers, a little relieved laugh in his throat. "Yay for therapy."

She breathes slowly, panicky now, seriously panicky, but his smile starts up again. His smile. And with it, her heart.

With it, her heart.

All the ways he's touched her. Before she ever met him, he touched her - those novels, the words he wrote, the way good shined and evil was dragged into the light and mystery was made right. And then as her partner these last few years, doggedly sticking by her side through the worst, the ends of the earth. And so whatever else they've done, there's this. There's-

"Oh, my God, Castle, I'm pregnant."

He laughs then, eyes brighter, and he's so happy. She's made him so happy. She did that, in the middle of everything else. She made him _happy._

"Yeah, so I hear." He dives back into his pocket and pulls out the ultrasound photo and that smile of his just gets absolutely ridiculous.

He could break her whole heart with it.

"I love you," she blurts out.

He drops to his knees. Literally.

Kate lets out a noise, grabbing for him. She misses and winds up hanging tightly to his one hand in hers, as if to soften his landing, and then she realizes he meant to do that.

And he's holding - what? - some kind of ring, something shiny-brass and flat-band - up with the ultrasound photo in his hand. "Katherine Houghton-"

"How do you know my middle name?"

He laughs and leans forward, his forehead pressed into the back of her hand, his laughter spilling across her fingers. "Of course, you would. You would ruin my moment. Our moment. Detective Kate Beckett, you have been the most frustrating, intelligent, maddening, beautiful woman I've ever known, and I already feel honored to have made a baby with you - don't laugh; I _do_ \- and you have already made me the happiest man, twice over, once when you told me we should get a room and now twice-"

"This is sounding sordid," she mutters, narrowing her eyes.

"Hush, Beckett, I'm doing something here."

"Badly."

"Pot meet kettle."

"Ouch," she says, but she doesn't feel it. Doesn't at all feel the sting. It's comical and sweet and poignant; it's them, and he's proposing to her. "Don't let that stop you. Get to the point."

"Finally, woman. The point is - we _are_ great together, I think we both know we've wanted this, and as crazy as it might be to jump ahead, I'm asking you - please, will do me the honor of saying yes just one more time?"

"Yes."

He lets out an explosive breath - he must have been expecting her to fight him - but he pushes the band down over her finger and it doesn't really fit, but it's pretty sweet. Actually, she thinks it's the band from the middle of a pen flashlight.

"Where'd this come from?" She spins it with her thumb as he gets off his knees, but he doesn't give her a chance to speculate.

Castle wraps her up in his arms, sweeping her off her feet so that she grunts and winds an arm around his waist to hang on. "I love you, Kate. I do - oh, look at that, practicing already. I do."

She bites her lip, tilting her head back to peer at him. She just - they just - they've had one night (after which she ran off in the pre-dawn gray) and now they're going to get married. And have a baby. Probably not in that order.

"This is going to be great. And you know, I don't care when - fast or wait until after - but I want you to have your dream wedding, Kate. Or whatever you want. But you'll - move in with me, right? And we'll work on our communication, because I never want a repeat of the last few weeks-"

She ceases his overflow of words - with her mouth. She takes them right off his lips and they taste clean, like water bubbling in a fountain, like joy, and she swallows the groan he releases as well.

He moves to cradle the back of her head, and she finds herself sliding slowly down his body, fists clutched in his shirt at his waist. His fingers tighten at her skull and his nose nudges into her, catching her, his lips moving to skim her own. She gasps for breath, awareness tickling across her skin, everywhere, and he presses her back, his mouth on hers again as if diving deep. As if he can't wait for more.

She clutches at his back and feels his hand at her shirt, thumbing buttons open, one after another (she forgot how good he was at this, adept), and her heart is thundering under his fingers.

He touches the hollow at her neck, bare now, and then trails down her sternum.

They both startle when he gets to the bullet scar, and his palm flattens between her breasts, covering the place. His mouth parts from hers, his forehead against hers, their breath fast and mingling in the twin thud of heartbeats.

Slowly, he uncovers the wound, the puckered skin she's stopped trying to hide.

His thumb traces a half-circle around it, and she remembers, vividly, the look in his eyes that morning as he hovered over her, when his hand first touched the spot and came away with blood and he knew.

She remembers that knowledge on his face, pale and drawn, the urgency of his voice.

She remembers his love then, and the night she took from him after the wedding, and it's too much.

"I'm sorry," she breathes between them. His hand is heavy at her breast, the eroticism of his touch making her tremble. "This it the worst timing. I don't know what this looks like, I don't know that I can even - keep this baby safe. The sniper is still out there, and there's no reason at all for them to let me live-" She breaks off before she can sob.

"Kate," he croaks. "Kate, I should have said - I should have told you before now. Oh, God, there's something you should know."

She freezes, her fists tightening in his shirt, and he runs his hand up to her neck, cups her jaw. He doesn't let go of her.

"Kate, I've done something. I made a deal for your life."

**X**


	6. Chapter 6

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Castle trembles, drops his hands so he's not trapping her. But a terrible darkness rises in her eyes when he lets go, like breaking a link, a lifeline, and she's drowning.

"What did you do?" she gets out. She tugs her elbows into her sides. "What did you do, Castle?"

She sounds so forlorn. He grabs her by the hips, has to resist the urge to pick her up over his shoulder and take her back to his bedroom. Just - not for sex - just to _keep_ her.

"Don't run," he husks.

"What did you do, what deal, what did you _do_?"

"Kate, I need you to promise me this changes nothing. Promise-"

"How can I do that? It could be everything, it could be - What have you _done_?"

And the terror shining back at him, the grief opening up in her face - as if it's been right there under the surface, waiting to swamp them both - is so brutal, so real, that he forgets his promise to himself and he catches her up. He puts his shoulder against her hip and lifts.

"What-?" she croaks.

He's being a bastard, he knows it, and this isn't how he wanted to do this, but he missed his chance once by falling asleep on the job, relaxing because he thought making love was _making love_ and he won't make that mistake again. He has to make sure of this.

He knows she's not a thing to be pinned down. Not even a marriage will keep her; she can't be kept.

So if he has to carry her into his bedroom- "If I have to handcuff you, I will," he growls.

"You - what the _hell_-" She growls back and he feels her nails digging into his neck, his shoulder, but he won't put her down. "Castle."

A vicious claw at his back makes his shoulders ripple. "You said next time without the tiger."

"There won't be a next time if you don't-"

But he deposits her in his office, behind his desk, and she stumbles once before finding her footing, glaring at him now with a wariness that actually makes him feel better. Less betrayal, more kick-ass detective.

"Explain," she says crisply, crossing her arms over her chest. She's rumpled, her sweater rucked up and her jacket askew, her hair tumbling soft waves. She's beautiful. She's going to have a baby with him. "Castle. Now."

She's also very scary.

"My explanation requires visual aids," he says. But he doesn't feel cheeky, he feels kind of sick. "If you would indulge me for a moment."

She doesn't go for the charm.

She really never has. He should just - get this over with - and perhaps stand behind her and block her escape route.

Castle scrapes his hand down his face and picks up the remote from the little box on his desk, and he aims it towards the flat screen television mounted on the wall.

As it always does, the display lights up with her face.

Kate is unmoving before him, and he waits for only a moment before he plunges into it. He doesn't want her to draw the wrong conclusions; if he's going to be sentenced, he wants it to be on his own terms, going down fighting.

"I got a phone call after you were shot. About this. A man who said he was sent a file by Montgomery, but it arrived too late to stop the sniper. A blackmail file on the man who's behind this. Montgomery had leverage and he wanted it used to save _your_ life, and his family, but not his own."

She steps forward and reaches out to touch the screen, her own face, and the whole board comes awake, peppered with images and notes and neatly arranged connections that expose his whole terrible year without her.

"What have you done." She sucks in a breath, apparently reading, mind clicking. "This is my - my case. My mother's - the sniper - are you investigating? And who is this? Who is the quesion mark?"

"It's - Mr Smith. He's the one I - both of us - made a deal."

"Castle, you better start _explaining_," she hisses, turning her head sharply to him. "Right now."

"This isn't where I thought we'd start improving our communication," he mutters miserably.

"I am not kidding around."

"No, I'm not either," he sighs. And then he clicks a button on his remote and Mr. Smith's picture goes full screen, all the details Castle has been able to piece together, every scrap of information he collected from his meeting in the underground garage. He knew that one day he would have to show this to her, meticulous notes included, and as he looks at it now, it reads like a confessional.

"You _met_ him?" she cries out. She's whirling around to grip him by the shoulders, shaking him. "Castle. You're not even _armed_. You got a phone call from some strange man who wouldn't tell you his name who said he knew all about my mother's murder - and you _went and met him alone_?"

"There were - details to work out. About the deal."

"You can't do this," she yells. "You don't get to do this." She's so vibrant in her emotion - anger, fear, betrayal, all of it - that he can't distinguish which parts are because of him and which are for him. "Castle he could have been - could still _be - _part of this. It didn't occur to you that this is something you should come to _me_ about first? That I should be - this is my mom's case, Castle. Not some - my _mother's case._ Are you insane?"

"I - no," he croaks. "I'm just in love with you, Kate."

Her eyes slam shut.

He finally cups her shoulders in his hands and eases himself closer, unable to help how needy he feels, confronted with her anger, her betrayal. He feels her bones under his fingers, how hard and rigid she is, against him, but he tucks her against himself despite it.

He knew it would be bad when he started this. But she wouldn't talk to him - not outright. It was all subtlety and codes exchanged on a swing set and it was just so precarious.

It feels even more precarious now.

"Why would you do this?" she moans.

He can't hold her any tighter than he already is. But he has to try.

"Because I'm in love with you, Kate, and I don't want you to die."

**X**


	7. Chapter 7

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

For the first time since she knocked on his door, she has no idea what happens now.

Marriage seems ridiculous, but then again, so does a baby. And that's happening whether she can fathom it or not.

She steps out of his arms, but her fingers trail over the plaid of his shirt, the so-soft material, well-worn, the scent of him still lingering.

He clutches at her shoulders and then releases her; she was going anyway, regardless. It's not like he could stop her.

Kate paces away, the brisk steps of her stride making clean, sharp noises against the wood floor. She's not sure she has the capacity for this, the ability to even process what Castle has done, not when there's everything else as well.

One night. She just wanted to know what it was like, what they were like. She just wanted to carry it with her until she could face everything, until it didn't feel like she had a target on her chest in a bullet-shaped scar.

Well, she's carrying it, alright.

And the target is gone.

So what is she doing? He made a deal and that target is _gone._ And she's holding herself back. Fighting him off. Does she _want_ to drive him away, is she just looking for an excuse? It's harder to stand and fight and maybe get bloodied for it, than it is to run and keep her life intact.

Ha. She _can't_. She can't keep her life; her life as she knew it is gone, and while part of her is terrified at the idea of having a helpless thing dependent on her, terrified at giving her body over, her whole life for the rest of her life-

Well, she's also ridiculously silly over it. She feels struck dumb when she thinks about it. Her heart flutters, and she didn't know it could actually, literally do that. Flutter. She's going to have a baby, with _him_, and this is her life now, this is her life.

She takes a breath and she misses the good, musky scent of him. She misses the body heat against her skin where she could rest her cheek. She hasn't even _had_ those things, not really: fleeting hours stolen after a wedding, a surfeit of joy in his living room. She could have those things if she's willing to take her stand.

"Kate-?"

She twists around, holding her hands up to ward him off. "No. No, I'm not doing this." She has to close her eyes against the emotion roiling in his face, because she has to say this first. "Not after - I'm really furious, and I'm - not good at confronting this kind of thing - and I'm saying no."

"No?"

Kate glances at him again. "Not right now. I can't do this and - and _this_," she gets out, sweeping her hand between them. "_We_ can't do this. Do you understand?"

His mouth opens and closes like a fish and he finally shrugs. "No?"

"We can't do this. I understand you've made some kind of deal for my life and-" She shudders as it runs through her again, her skin twitching like horse with flies. She could happily strangle him. "But you can't."

"It's all that stands between you and another bullet," he says grimly. His jaw is mutinous, eyes stubborn. _Don't you dare._ "Don't tell me I can't."

"You meet up with this Smith guy? Well, next time he calls, I'm coming with you."

"Like hell you are."

"Don't even," she hissed.

"You're not going. I wouldn't take Alexis with me; I'm not taking you."

"I have a _gun_ and a _badge_ and-"

"And a _baby._" Castle stalks off, turns around and comes back, jabbing his finger her direction. "Mine. And I wouldn't send mine out to meet this guy."

"Then you shouldn't be out there either, Rick Castle."

"A gun isn't going to-"

"Either I go with you, or you don't go."

He straightens up, but he can't find the words for it.

"That's the new deal," she says, crossing her arms over her chest. "Both of us or none of us."

"Kate."

"No. _No._ Everyone connected to this case is _dead_, Castle. Everyone."

He deflates in front of her, sinking back against his desk with his hands on his knees, like he can't hold himself up.

She feels shaky, but her heart is still there, fluttering. She's scared to death, and she doesn't know how else to make him understand. "And you're mine, you know."

His head jerks up. "What."

"You're part of this," she says, shoulders tight, the words foreign in her mouth. She's not used to saying things to him, which means not to anyone, not for a long time. And even now, she can't help injecting a little self-defensive humor into it. "You already know me. I don't want to start over with some other baby daddy."

Castle actually laughs, surprise peppering the noise of his lungs, and he leans forward to take her hands, drag her to stand before him. She allows herself to step between his knees, rest their clasped hands over his thighs.

His fingers twitch against hers and she feels him drawing closer, nearly cheek to cheek, and it stuns her all over again how she loves him. Leaves her reeling, swaying into him, and she has to catch herself. She loves him.

Oh, my God. She loves him.

"Kiss me, Beckett."

"No."

"Please? You can start over with me, and it won't even be starting over."

She hums as if she's thinking about it, but she won't let herself kiss him, lose all rational thought in the heat that bursts to life between them. Enough mistakes. Time to talk.

"Okay," he says finally. He's stroking the tops of her thighs with his thumbs. "I get it. I understand. What do you need to know?"

Her heart twists and she looks away. But the terrible thought still swims in her head. "Are you - part of this, Castle?"

"Of course I am."

She stiffens.

"We made this together," he murmurs, and his lips faintly, faintly brush her cheek.

Kate lets out a strangled laugh. "Yeah, we did. But I meant - this deal you made. For my life. A deal to - do what? What do they get in exchange? What are you - what are you doing for them in return, Rick?"

Castle freezes.

Her heart closes up. It's worse somehow, knowing that he loves her. If he was the annoying writer tag-along, she could brush it aside, fix his mistakes. But this is-

"You don't investigate," he chokes out. "God, I'm so sorry. I convinced you to drop it. You have to lay it aside for now, just for now, until I can... I don't know. But you can't keep digging into it. Especially not right now."

She swallows grief so thick it won't go down. "But don't you see?" she whispers, stepping out of his reach. "Not investigating is the same as covering it up. Like Raglan and the rest. Like Montgomery. You're keeping me quiet. It puts you on their side."

**X**


	8. Chapter 8

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Castle stares at her. Kate. So terrifyingly certain.

"And what about the baby?" he says. "What side is she - he - what side is that on?"

She frowns.

He won't reach out for her; he won't. He can't keep reaching out only to have her keep backing away; he can't survive like that. "Does the baby make you think twice about investigating? Does it change your behavior at all?"

She doesn't have an answer for that, and he thinks that's answer enough. At least now she's thinking it through.

"I'm not on their side, Kate. That you can ask me a question like that - no, not even a question. A flat statement. I'm on their side. Am I? Is that how you see this?"

"This isn't a game."

"Oh, no? You're the one picking teams, Beckett." He disgust is a noise in his throat and he jerks to his feet, shoving off the desk to stride out of the office. He can't sit there and just watch her accuse him of being on _their side._

And if he stays in his office with her, he might do something he'd regret.

She's fooling herself, that's what she's doing. She's looking for a reason to not accept this, to not love him back, and did he think it would change in the space of an hour? She's not ready. She has a wall. She _told_ him that herself.

Maybe it excuses everything, maybe it should ease his way to forgiveness, but he's not feeling forgiving. He's ready; he's been ready. He's been waiting, but now that it's all within his reach, he's forgotten the first rule of running a marathon, _set your pace,_ and he's chucked his discipline and just started flat-out sprinting.

"Castle?"

He realizes he's halfway to his kitchen, and he turns back with a studied smile on his face. _Be nice._ She's hesitant at the doorway to his office, and her nervousness is both heart-breaking and also endearing. And he loves her all over again and it's hopeless.

"Dinner," he says firmly. "I'm starving. And you look like you came straight from the Twelfth. Come on. You can help."

She opens her mouth, flushes pink, closes it again. She doesn't move to join him though. As if she thinks he's tricking her somehow.

He lets the silence drain tension from the room, lets the quiet work on him too. He opens the pantry and scans the shelves, but his mind isn't settled enough yet to plan a meal. So he just stands there, breathing, letting it go.

When he turns, she's approached the invisible line demarcating the living room from the kitchen, but he moves on, searching for food. He finds that his words are a good deal more calm.

"Detective, no matter what you and I are - whatever it is we're doing or not doing here - you've changed your mind or-" He thought he could affect nonchalance. Instead, his throat is closing up. That is _not_ the way to do this. "So you've changed your mind about me. That doesn't change that."

He nods to where she's unconsciously pressed her palm against her stomach, right there, and he knows it's unconscious because when he points it out, she drops her hand as if scalded.

"Still a baby," he says quietly. "And you're right. I do know you. Even if it's difficult, you'll do the right thing. Which means we'll have to figure out how to talk to each other. Sooner or later, raising a child, things come up. What happens when she wants an iphone and you think no and I think yes?"

"She?"

He shrugs. "That's been my experience. Or _he_ pitches a fit over watching a tv show you don't approve of? We're going to have to talk."

She clutches her elbows. "It's not a girl."

He scoffs, turns around to head back for the kitchen once more. She can't talk like that and have him keep his heart safe. She can't _dream_ with him.

She'll kill him.

"You don't know what it is. That's not until 18 weeks."

"I know." By the sound of her voice, she's trailing after him. "But I - want a boy."

She's already killing him.

Rick doesn't turn around and look - he really can't do that - but he does give her a sidelong glance before he opens his fridge to check out the troops he might muster. Fresh veggies in the crisper, some cheese he bought at the farmers' market, and one of those pre-made pizza crusts.

Good enough, pretty well-balanced too. "You have vitamins and - and all that?" he asks, turning with items in his arms. Strategy, that's the goal now. Talk strategy until the knife's edge of pain has dulled in his chest, and then he can try again with all the rest of it.

She's standing at the bar, fiddling with the edge of a cloth napkin leftover from breakfast, and her hair has fallen forward to hide her eyes. She takes that moment to tuck it behind her ear, and then she looks up at him.

"I'm sorry."

He sets the veggies on the granite and places his hands on the edge of the counter to brace himself. She's not giving him the chance to retreat. "You're... sorry for what?" Doing this to him? Not loving him enough? Not willing to try?

"For what I said. What I made it sound like. I know whose side you're on." She takes a sharp breath and straightens up. "I'm still not any good at this, at being in a relationship. I want to be more-"

"You're more than enough," he cuts in, tamping down the urge to grab her. "I'm not asking for perfection, Kate. You won't get that with me anyway. Clearly. Just don't - just keep trying."

"Just don't what?" she says. As always, cutting right to the heart of things, seeing clear down to what people most want to hide. "Just don't what, Castle? Break your heart? Because I'm afraid I'm going to do that."

He grips the counter. "You already have. About four or five times just today. And yesterday, a few hundred. No need to be afraid; I've got practice."

Her mouth twists and she drops her gaze to her hands. "That's not funny."

"I'm not laughing."

**X**


	9. Chapter 9

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

She can't lift her head or tears will fall and she's been so good at keeping it together.

She just has to breathe.

He shifts; she can see his shadow against the counter. He sighs. "And I guess I'm breaking your heart too?"

She chews fiercely on the inside of her cheek. "Yeah. Little bit." Her voice is steadier than she expected.

"I think that's going to happen, Kate. We're both strong-willed people who have complicated lives. But I think it's a good sign - having a heart to break at all - because it means we care. And if you're afraid of _that_, well, I can name a hundred more frightening things. Dying in childbirth, that scares the shi-"

"God, Castle," she groans, dropping her head into her hands. She's shaking. "Like I need _one more thing._"

"Sorry, sorry," he says, but he doesn't sound sorry. She lifts her head and he's coming around the counter and wrapping his arms around her, cupping the side of her face to chastely kiss her temple.

They both freeze with the naturalness of his movement, of how real and true it feels to be doing this right now when all they've really had of each other is a night she took because she was selfish.

And yet he kissed her and now holds her to him like they've done it before, forever. She wonders if he's had the same dreams she has, dreams where it's easy and they touch each other, dreams where she can reach out to him and not fear the consequences. His embrace makes her think maybe so, and that fills her whole world with hope again.

She turns even as his arms loosen and fall away, but she puts her hands on his waist, lightly, keeping him close.

"We have to talk about this," she whispers.

"Giving birth?" he says, a wild look in his eyes.

"No. What you did - have done for me."

His face grows mulish, his eyes slide away.

She tightens her fists in his shirt and tugs on him, dragging his attention back to her. "Castle. Can you at least agree that we make a good team?"

His grin slices fast across his face and licks through her like lightning, a rush of heat and _want_ that makes her glad she's hanging on.

"Yeah," he says, wolfish. "We are _very_ good together. You were right - I had no idea."

The heat is liquid under her skin, and suddenly she doesn't want to talk at all. Not unless she's saying dirty things to him and making him come undone.

She wants him. Like that night, but for more. For the rest of - for however many nights she can have. Every day she manages not to ruin them, she wants those nights, body to body, wants it so very badly. Him.

"We're very good together," she hums, taking one more step closer, her body almost touching his. "You and me. Partners."

She can see the effect on him, more than ever before, and maybe because suddenly it's not necessarily a _tease_. She could actually take him by the hand and lead him back to his bedroom.

She's never been in his bed. Not _his_ bed. She really wants to do that. Tonight. She wants this to end well for them - or _not_ end - and she knows he does too.

See where this might go.

"Castle?"

"Partners," he gasps. "Partners."

"Promise me," she says. It's underhanded, and she knows it, but-

"Promise," he says, fast, his throat thick so that his voice is eroticism itself. "I promise, Kate. I do."

_Already practicing._

"Then I promise, too," she answers. "I do too." And it is a promise. To try this, to really try, like he asked. "Even if - anything. If anything, if hearts get broken, I promise."

He looks both turned on and incredibly relieved, and she almost hates to do it to him.

"And if we're partners - because we're partners - then my mother's case, and this deal you've made? If it's too dangerous for me, then it's too dangerous for you. Or - or we both investigate it, like we should, like we ought to do. Partners. Smith gets all or none, Castle. Both of us or none of us."

His face falls as he realizes what she's done, what he's _promised._

"You tricked me."

And she's pregnant. With his baby, his future too here. She's tricked him all the way around.

"Maybe I did."

**X**


	10. Chapter 10

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Castle works his jaw, not looking at her, wonders if this - from her - is heart-breaking or just impressive. She's a master in the interrogation room, and she's just done it to him now: lead him down the primrose path.

Because he's _him_, he's impressed (and a little turned on). And while the idea of not having the safety net of Mr Smith makes him anxious over her, Castle's mind is already working, trying to stay ahead of her. She makes him sharp; she always has.

"What happens if we do it together?" he says.

Her heart lifts into her eyes. He can actually see it, _see_ how much that means to her, to have the chance. Not that he's giving her permission, but there's a sense that if they do this together, then their safety net is _each other._ She tricked him, but she's right. It was stupid to blunder around in this case without back-up.

"How far have you gotten?" she says. A little too excited for his liking. Is that fervor in her eyes or just the spark of building theory?

"Not far," he admits, frowning. "And even though the thought of you going back to your mom's case makes me nervous-"

"_Nervous_?" she scoffs. But he sees it at the back of her eyes. She is too. All this work she's done on that wall, and it might be unmade by this case.

He rubs the back of his neck. "I thought it wouldn't be manly to say scared shitless."

Her eyebrow quirks. He's not one for casual cursing; if he says it, he means it with every nuance of its power. It _terrifies_ him to think of her going back to her mother's case, and it has nothing to do with the pregnancy, and everything to do with pressing his hands into the entrance wound on her chest and feeling her blood, warm and thick, pulsing out around his fingers.

"Okay," she says carefully. "I can understand that fear, but I'll be careful."

"_We_ will be careful."

She reaches out and snags him by the finger, squeezing. His ring finger, he realizes. A band of her own making. "We'll be careful. We won't do it through the precinct, nothing official, nothing on the books. You and me, we'll have each other's backs. We'll be smart."

He nods, his throat bobbing with the sudden urge to cry. He's that relieved. It's been weighing on him since her shooting, this oppressive cloud of responsibility, alone in the middle of it, hoping he could stop her before she made it all fall apart. "I never thought I would keep it from you," he gets out. "I never thought I'd purposefully keep anything back when-"

"But you did."

"Because they'll kill you," he croaks. He shakes his head and clears his throat. "They _will_ kill you, Kate. This is much bigger than some organized crime boss; it's-"

"I know," she says, gripping his fingers in her own. "And as much as I'm not happy about what you did, it's also about what you've done. For me. Even knowing how I'd react, you still-"

"I'm sor-"

"No. Rick," she says, catching his other hand and pressing their clasped grip against her. "I'm - despite myself - impressed. You knew you were risking _us_ \- but you did it anyway to keep me safe. And while I'm frustrated, I am, and it's going to take me time to work through-" She huffs and grips his hands harder. "Did I say yet I've got issues? A damn wall? You keep managing to run me into bricks."

Castle lets out a little laugh, surprised by the way her frustration bubbles up. She's moved from certainty to something a little more insecure, as if she can't bear to let it out into the light. She's kind of adorable, and never in a million years did he think he would use _adorable_ to describe her.

"Yeah, I think I heard something about a wall," he says, smiling at her. "Might be the thing that's kept me going. Waiting for the day it's finally gone."

She blushes. He can't remember ever seeing her move through so many variations of emotion, all these shades of feeling. No wonder they've never talked plainly before; it's all over her face and brimming in her eyes.

"Well, I turn around and run up against big chunks of it - and this is one of them. But I also realize - what if it was you? What if they said, you have to stop or Castle is-"

She bites her bottom lip, glancing away, and is she about to _cry?_

He can't quite believe this is where they are. He hasn't even had a chance to make dinner; they're just standing in his kitchen. This whole agonizing, amazing conversation has taken maybe thirty minutes.

His whole life turned upside down in thirty minutes.

She lets out a huffing breath, frowns intently, staring somewhere past his shoulder. "I'm still struggling with this idea that you've been doing this, my mom's case, _my_ \- but not anymore. Not alone, Castle." Something strange flares to life in her face and she suddenly presses both of his hands into her abdomen. "Oh, God. We're really not alone."

For one long, horrifying second, all he can do is stare at her.

Kate Beckett is pregnant. He - _he_ \- _they_-

"I'm getting you a ring," he blurts out.

"What?"

"A promise ring."

"Castle, that's - sweet, but-"

He nudges into her stomach, strokes the backs of his fingers over her shirt. It's still halfway unbuttoned and he has a fierce urge to reach inside, _take. _But he grips her hands harder instead. "Partners, in this too, wherever it takes us, Kate."

"Part-partners," she whispers.

"I'm getting you a promise ring. Because I know you don't want to get married-"

"I said _yes_-"

"Kate. I saw the look on your face in my office," he says quickly. "After I explained. You had that _what the hell have I agreed to?_ look. I know that one well. Married twice before, comes with the territory, as you've pointed out."

"Are you going to be snarky and passive-aggressive for all of our marriage?"

He startles. She's not laughing, but she does look faintly amused. He wants to unbutton her shirt and draw it off of her, and it's making his words come out stupid. "I learn from the best," he says. "But enough about my mother-"

Kate laughs, sounding absolutely horrified that she's laughing, but he smiles back, relieved. He keeps swinging wildly back and forth between childish hurt and needy desperation, and yet here she is. But his mouth can't seem to stop.

"You want a long engagement - I know you. You'll probably put me off for years," he sighs.

"Castle," she chides.

He grows serious once more, fiddling with the stupid metal band he took from his maglite. A really excellent tactical flashlight that he bought the _day_ the mayor appointed him to follow Detective Beckett and her team, and it has symbolism for him, but it's just a piece of metal that doesn't fit.

"I'm getting you a ring. A promise ring. Partners. Because that's what this means to me," he says, holding her fingers apart to work the band. "That's what our marriage would be for me. Partnership."

"You're using the conditional tense," she murmurs, like a soft rebuke.

He lets out a breath, wishing that had gone past her. "I did. I am. Because it's not - necessary, Kate. I got excited and you were right, my first instinct is to marry you and jump right into it. Dive in together-"

She lets out a noise.

He can't look. "It's not practical, and after sometime, and the baby has grown, maybe it's not what you want for your life - a marriage that's only a convenience for you - and then what happens when it's not even that. I don't want that for you. Or - or me." But with her he does, even if she doesn't love him as desperately as he does her. "I've had that kind of marriage, for too long, and it sucks. But this? Partners? Yeah. No matter what. That's my promise. That's what I can give you. That might be all I can give you."

"You're an idiot." She steps into him and suddenly her arms are thrown around his neck, her body pressed against his and flaring heat all through him. Her mouth comes to his ear. "You're such an idiot, Rick Castle."

He hesitates to embrace her back, hesitates to let himself, afraid that if he holds her, he won't want to ever let her go. "Don't disparage me," he gets out. "That's the - hardest thing I've ever had to say." He's shaking, he thinks, and so he clutches at her. "Worse than telling you about the deal with Smith."

"Then actually listen to me, Castle, when I'm talking to you. It's not a marriage of convenience," she growls at his neck. "You think _any_ of this is convenient?"

"I-"

"No, don't. You don't get to talk any more. My turn, Castle, before you break _my_ heart." She pulls her head back, cradles his face. "What's happened to you, Rick, that you let go so fast? You just quit on us and didn't even give me the chance to really screw it up."

He stares back at her.

"Was it Meredith?" Her fingers are so soft on his face, but her grip is strong. "Gina, perhaps, all business. Or your mother-? Oh. Oh, no. It was me. Did I do this?"

"What?" he croaks.

"Did I do this to you? Make you so hesitant to believe in me."

"I believe in you," he cries out.

"Then believe in us. You think I would be here now, _still_ here, after everything we've said to each other, after you made this stupid deal for my life without even telling me, when it could have-" She squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head, opens them again with a glare. "After all this, I better be getting an _engagement_ ring, Rick Castle, not some teenager's promise ring. And you have serious money, so it better be a _serious_ rock."

**X**


	11. Chapter 11

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

When his forehead crashes into hers, Kate lets out a little laugh, caught by surprise at the intensity of his relief. His arms tighten around her, drawing her in, and she finds herself bowed backward by the force of him.

"Anything you like," he says. His words are rough and she can feel the jerky way his breath comes through his body. "Any ring in the whole world. Just tell me what I can get away with. Carats, cut-"

"I want you to pick it out," she whispers. She does; she feels girly all of the sudden, like she's fifteen and dreaming those dreams she never did when she was fifteen. That wasn't her - but now at nearly thirty-five, it is. Maybe it's him. Maybe it's the idea of having a baby with Richard Castle, oh my God.

"I can pick out your ring?" he murmurs. Some amount of amusement, but more than that, she hears a sweet sense of wonder and she can't help clutching his ears and angling her mouth to his.

Castle grunts and immediately turns aggressive, pushing into her until the small of her back hits the counter. His kiss is rough, need-filled, hungry, and for a moment, it's all she can do to just stand up under it, take it, swallow the rough desperation. He's fierce but he's _good_, his hands gripping and seeking and caressing in time, and she's strung out on him before she knows what's hit her.

And then she finds ways to battle back, nudging into him with her mouth, nipping with her teeth until her tongue strokes along his. He groans something feral against her, his hands unerringly pushing inside her shirt and catching her flesh, kneading.

She gasps, entirely more aware than she's ever been, thoroughly possessed and fiercely possessive, and her body demands it all, right now, no more delays. His mouth tears from hers and grazes down her neck, a scrape of his teeth over her throat that reminds her of that night, and how this all started, dancing too close with her shoes off so that her body fit just like this against his.

How this all started. And where it will all end, but not end. She really - really - hopes this won't end, please no, please - and not just because a baby is for life.

She arches her hips into him even as she tugs on his ears - why is she so obsessed with the curve of soft shell and the down on his lobe? who _is_ she and how has he done this to her so fast? - and his face comes up from her breasts all smudged and dark with desire.

Kate strokes lightly over his ears to drown out the too-loud sound of their arousal, and the heat shifts, but doesn't quite wane. She runs her fingers down his cheeks, skims the taut cords of his neck - he's very into her - and then she hooks two fingers into the front pocket of his plaid shirt. The ultrasound is still there, the paper warmed by such close proximity to his skin, and she slides it out.

Castle's breath catches once, and then begins to even out again, though his hands drift down to her waist, bare, still _inside_ her shirt, and his thumbs stroke along her belly. Her skin flutters all over but the picture has caught her.

At twelve weeks, it's definitely a baby; the image has distinct features, the skinny limbs and round belly and big Castle head that make it impossible to miss. "When I went, I didn't expect this to be real," she tells him, "so I didn't think to have you come with me. But the next-"

"Yes," he says in a rush. She glances up and he grins. "I'm assuming you were going to ask if I wanted to be there next time?"

"Yeah." She presses her lips together, some strong emotion clutching at her heart like a fist, and she glances down at the image again. That's her baby. "He looks like he doesn't have any arms, but he does."

Castle is practically vibrating.

She traces the tip of a fingernail over the round little skull. "She said his arms are up here by his head, curled up. Seems kind of protective. I hope he's not already sick of hearing us fight."

"God, you're adorable."

She jerks her gaze up to him, completely startled, but Castle is crashing into her - nuzzling? - down into her neck, lifting her practically off of her feet with the strength of his embrace. But the sound that comes out of his mouth is more ragged than whole, and she clutches the photo in one hand and tightens her grip on his back, afraid of how strong this is, all of it, how shockingly deep and immediate this love is.

She's not sure if it's the baby or him, but it feels the same as it did when she woke that night in the hotel room he'd rented just above the ballroom where they'd danced. She opened her eyes to find his body curled around hers, needful and close, his lashes beautiful in the moonlight and his arms so appealingly powerful that she would have pushed herself right into him and taken it all over again.

All but for the intensity of what it was she felt. It swamped her, like waking up with both feet in a bog and sinking, inexorably, into a mud so thick it would be impossible to find her way clear. And she was so heavy with burdens, the sinking felt faster and faster.

So instead of waking him with urgent hands, she got out of bed and found her dress. Never found her panties, and she assumed he has them, but he never got her note, so maybe those are gone too. Maybe this is the only thing left.

"Castle," she gets out, both of them still gripping too hard, clinging too tightly. "Castle, no more of this."

**X**


	12. Chapter 12

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

"That's too bad," he growls, "because I'm not going to stop kissing you."

She laughs, and he feels her body thrumming and strong against his, her arms winding around his neck. "Good, because I'm done with talking. I hate talking. It just messes things up."

"I think it's made things pretty clear," he says. "In between the parts where we were breaking each other's hearts."

"I didn't mean to," she whispers, her mouth a warm line at the corner of his lips. "I'm not trying to break your heart."

"That's okay," he forgives. And he angles his mouth and sucks lightly at the down-turned sadness of hers. She tastes like chocolate and peppermint, like the Andes mint he left in her drawer at the 12th, by accident really, and why is it turning him on that she touches his stuff just as much as he touches hers? "So long as you're not trying to do it, we'll be good."

"It feels too easy," she says.

"Are you kidding me?" He pulls back only a little, narrowing his eyes, but her hand catches at the back of his neck and squeezes.

"Get back here, Castle," she mutters. "Seriously, I'm done with talking. Over. I'll do all my communicating with my mouth."

He smiles widely because he doesn't think she gets what she just said, and he dips forward and touches his tongue to the line of her jaw until she shudders. "Well, that's good because I want to hear you, every noise, every _oh God_, every-"

"Oh, you will." Her voice is so deliciously rough, and he feels her leg wind around his, press them intimately closer. "Soon, very soon, if you don't stop teasing."

"Did I hear stop?"

"Are you being dense on purpose?" she says, and, oh God, it sounds like she's whining in his ear. Whining. Sex-starved whining. The kind that involves her hips rocking into him and futzing out his brain.

This is no good.

He grips the back of her thigh and hikes her leg up, driving her back and onto the kitchen counter. Kate moans, gripping his neck, their bodies colliding again. They clatter into the barstools and she catches one before it can tip back - a deft and impossibly flexible hook of her foot - and he's impressed and turned on, and this is no good at all.

"Not on the counter, Castle-" she says, reading his mind. Wrapping her legs around his waist. Pressing herself against him. Hot and tight, her mouth moving just under his ear. "I want to do things to you. You might not survive it when you hit the floor."

_God. _"My luck, someone would come home right-"

"Oh, God," she groans, burying her face in his neck and pinching his skin.

He winces but the sharp of her nails is memory too, and his body knows exactly. "Not quite how I remembered that sounding, but-"

"Not on the damn counter," she grinds out, her voice and her hips, and he's learned now to listen to both her body _and_ her words, because she means them both.

She meant it, that night in the hotel, even when she ran away. She meant love when she danced against him, close and warm, she meant love when she undressed him in the room and clutched him and then flipped him over and did devastating things with her hips and her hands and her body swaying above his.

This is really no good at all. This is ending before it begins if he can't get her somewhere horizontal and padded (a rug would be fine, even with the rug burn; it would be entirely fine, oh God, Kate-)

Her legs squeeze around him, her body arches, her mouth sucking a nice, painful mark just above his collarbone. She's going to kill him. She's already killed him, so dead he's alive in the worst and most excruciating, amazing ways.

Not on the counter, he chants to himself. Not on the counter. He's wound so tight, he's not sure he can coordinate anything _but_ right on the counter.

No, no, no - he really wants to see her, all of her, every inch he memorized that night with touch and lips. To have her in the perfect setting of his bedroom with her hair a dark contrast to his beige sheets, her cream-colored skin like the swirl of milk before subsumed in coffee, and even narrating it in his head with her body wrapped around him and his hands gripping her flesh is doing things he can't control. He has to have more, forever, always.

"I can't stop," she breathes. "Oh, God, - Rick - your hands-"

"I can't carry you," he admits. She gasps a little, laughing, and he realizes maybe she wasn't asking him to, but just commenting on what he was already doing to her. "I'd love to carry you, but right now I'm pretty sure I'd break something - a vase, you, the table, my back. The list goes on."

She laughs and slides right off the counter, right down his body, torturous and wonderful, and her hand finds him, a little action that makes his eyes slam shut and a curse fall out. His hands brace himself on the granite, bowing over against her, instantly unable to function.

"And not the table either," she hums. "At least not yet. We'll work up to it." Her hands trace along his forearms and take his hands from the counter, laughing again - she's so bright and joyful and aroused, look at her, gorgeous, gorgeous Kate - and she laces their fingers together, brings his knuckles up to kiss them, one joint after another, bone by bone, ten soft, beautiful kisses.

His heart flips over in his chest. He wants to marry her right now. He wants to hide his face between her legs and-

"I'm taking you to bed," she says softly, but her whole body is fierce.

He follows, allured, once more a believer.

**X**


	13. Chapter 13

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

It's surreal, this walk from his kitchen to his bedroom, Kate leading the way with their fingers tangled between them like a leash.

She's not sure who's been collared, who's been tamed, but her, most likely. She's the one who needed to be house-trained. And still does, this whole conversation has made that clear. She's a kind of feral thing when it comes to relationships, as if the wall has not only kept her from being able to commit to anyone, but it's also stunted her emotional growth.

So while everyone else figured it out and grew up and got on with life, she's a 19 year old abandoned _cat_ with a hole blown through her heart?

"What are you laughing at?" he says from behind her.

Castle. Writer Castle.

It's him and it's not him, not the voice over paperwork and dead bodies, but the voice over the console during stakeouts and sifting through her mother's personal effects for a fresh clue. She knows that voice, but in this way, with that extra register to it, with the sense of richness enveloping every tone, enveloping her...

Was he in love with her and wanting her each of those times too?

She used to sneak glances over at him and her heart would fill up in her chest and she couldn't speak. And maybe there was Castle with all those normal, everyday words doing the same thing.

"Myself," she finally answers, looking at him over her shoulder in the hallway. She's leading him to his own bed, and she knows there's something possessive about it. "Marking my territory like a pet that can't be house-broken."

He grins. "I'm not looking to break you. But if you pee on my furniture, I'll have to-"

She laughs for real then, facing forward with his hand still in hers, moving for his bedroom. "You'll have to what?"

"Scotch-guard it?" he suggests. She can hear him shrug. "Besides, the baby will have enough mishaps that it might be worthwhile to-"

"Mishaps?" she squeaks, spinning around just inside his bedroom. "What are you talking about?"

He chuckles and his fingers release hers to nudge on her hip, pushing her backward over the threshold. "Well, newborns, when their lower bodies hit the cool air-" He huffs and shakes his head. "Waterworks."

"Are you kidding me? They just pee while you're changing them?"

"Oh, yes," he laughs again, but now she thinks he's laughing _at _her. "And more than that, newborn diapers - oh, man - they could be classified as federal disasters."

She blanches, twitching backwards. "No. No. Why?"

His grin is rather over-bearing at the moment, and he leans in to press a soft kiss against her lips. "Kate, you're cute, you know that? You have no idea what to do with a baby, do you?"

"I'm... not really a baby person," she admits. Some of the ardor has dissolved, but none of the ache for him. She wants to press her body against his, skin to skin, but there's now a sense of responsibility to it, as if she ought to be asking important questions.

His fingers skate along the back of her arm, pleasantly teasing. Baby talk has dampened the lust, but not the need, and she wants him just as much as she did when she was wrapped around him on his granite countertop.

"I'm sure it's different if it's yours. When it's yours. Or mine, I mean," she says, flustered by his touch, by the way she can't seem to hold the reality of a baby in her mind. Different if it's Castle's baby might be right though. If it's his, then it might not all be so terrifying.

"Not really a baby person," he says then. "Like how?"

Since she has a little more ability to hold a conversation, she really should try harder - it's her words he apparently wants as much as touching her. Body and words, the body of her words, and her mind is skipping from thought to thought as she watches his face flicker with a sudden uncertainty.

She wrinkles her nose. "Everyone seems to want to rush in and hold them and pinch their cheeks, but not me. I'm fine to let Lanie do the squealing, and I'll-"

"Does Lanie know?" he asks suddenly. He's stopped pushing her towards the bed and she thinks that's a failure on her part. Explain better, faster, because she really needs to put his body under hers on that bed. "Have you told-"

"No. Of course not. Not before you." She hooks her fingers in his belt loops and tugs, tugs, tugs him backwards. "Bed, Castle. Done talking. Conversation's over. Look, we don't even have to worry you'll knock me up."

His face lights up at that - she's already knocked up, and that passes over him like water and light, and she can _see_ it and it makes her feel like water and light too.

But then her own head takes her down the rest of that natural path, down to the other talk they didn't even have to have that night in the hotel - _are you clean, of course you are, yes, please, just do it already - _and then from there to why they maybe _should_ have that conversation now.

They should be having that conversation now.

She freezes at the same moment that his hands get to interesting places, and the backs of her knees hit the mattress and she stumbles hard. He freezes with her, hands at her zipper, waiting on her, like he can see the question springing up between them.

"Did you sleep with her?" she rushes out, everything else closing up, her throat, her heart.

His face falls and he removes his hands from her pants.

Oh, God.

She wraps her arms around her chest, her shirt gaping open, her jeans unbuttoned, frigid air washing over her. She has goose bumps and her throat is tight.

"I - yes," he whispers.

**X**


	14. Chapter 14

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

She looks struck.

He steps back from her, his shoulders moving up and down with a breath he can't seem to complete.

"I - used protection," he says. Feeble, hollow. "If that's - what you - I'd never do that-"

He stops, horrified.

Her mouth drops open. "You'd never do that to me?" she finishes, and her whole face looks raw, a fresh wound. "But you did. You did that to me."

He still can't breathe right. "I never wanted to h-" But he did want to hurt her. "I thought you'd been - stringing me along, lying," he croaks. "I wanted you to hurt as much as me."

He's an ass.

"Oh, _God,_" she says, and she presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. Hiding herself from him.

He feels like he's going to throw up. He's ruined it before he had a chance. But she didn't love him, but she did, does she now? - can she possibly?

How can she? Why would she at all?

"Why aren't you talking?" she growls. "Where are all the words now? Why can't you-" She stops, dropping her arms to cross them over her chest and clutch her elbows. "Make it right."

"There aren't any words to make it right," he says.

Her eyes are fathomless pools in the semi-dark, fathomless and wretched. She hunches as if absorbing a blow, and what words he does think of are trite and foolish before they even start, dying at the back of his throat.

"But I - nothing changed for me," she gets out. "I still loved you and I was-"

Oh, God. She's crying.

Her jerks toward her and she stumbles back, hastily swiping under her eyes, not looking at him.

He stands very still. His chest is so tight that air can't get in. His voice is sandpaper when it comes. "Is that past tense?"

Her mouth opens and nothing - there's nothing.

Castle closes his eyes, and the grief spills out. Doesn't bother touching it. Can't even think of what - what he's done. He can't bear to look at her, this woman he aches to love, this woman he might never have.

Vegas was before her, but it wasn't before her. Before their time, but _not_ before their time. That night of the wedding, that should have been their start, but then it wasn't, and the silence stretched on and then the truth came out and it looked like the worst. It wasn't, but he didn't have anything else to hang on to, nothing except her silence and the way she would smile at him, but she's never going to smile at him like that again, is she?

He stopped waiting. That's the bottom line. Doesn't matter that it looked like there was never anything to wait for - the truth is that there was. There was.

He doesn't know what happens now. And the baby. God, it's worse for her, she's the one pregnant, he can _hear_ her crying, and when he gets the courage to look, she's just standing there, wiping the tears as they come as if to erase all evidence. She won't meet his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he says, ineffectually. "I'll - go. I know you need space when it's - bad." Bad? He slept with someone else. He cheated on _them_, on the idea of them. She spent an entire summer hiding out after he said he _loved_ her. Space is the last, the very last thing he wants, but right now it's not about him. "I'll let you have the - room - and you can do - you can smash everything in the place, destroy it, or do whatever you have to. Just stay. I won't do anything. Only don't - please don't leave the loft until we can - even if it takes months to be able to talk to me again, Kate, and I have to sleep in the guest room every night, I will. I will." _Just don't take the baby away from me._ "I'll do whatever it is you want-"

"Stop," she chokes. "Stop."

He stops. She puts her back to him, her whole body drawn up - protective, isn't that what she called it? Already he's done that. Made her curl up in self-defense. Like the baby on the ultrasound.

He's hurt them both.

Castle sinks heavily to the bed, bowing his head, hands braced on his knees, trying to breathe. He slept with Jacinda because it felt exactly like this, raw and gaping and never-to-be-filled, but it was a wreck and pointless and it only felt good for that instant of release and then it felt like a life sentence: everything after Kate was going to feel faded and dull and worthless, no matter what he did.

And now it really is.

He turns and rubs his eyes into his shoulder, the material of his shirt soaking tears, and he can see her pacing tightly, and it makes him warily regard the door.

He could beat her to the door if he had to.

But maybe he shouldn't, even that. Maybe he should finally just - stop screwing up her life.

She hasn't said a word. And his are - useless. He heaves himself up off the bed, won't look at her as he moves slowly towards the door. He should - leave her alone. Just leave her alone, for God's sake, before he ruins every last good thing they might ever have been.

But he just - can't.

How will he ever - the baby is - he can't leave when the baby is - it's real. She wants a boy; there was that moment in the living room when he was given a vision of how beautiful they might be, his son in her arms - but he can't leave when he doesn't know how extensive the damage is. Did he make it - disappear?

Castle slumps into the doorframe and leans his forehead against the wood. "I'm sorry," he speaks dully. "I don't know that words will help. But. I was - dying. I thought we were - less than nothing_._ A con, a joke. Made everything a desert, my whole life barren. The idea that I'd been hallucinating all this time, inventing meaning where there was none - and so the reality of it was bleak, and dry, and dead. She was a mirage of water, and I drank it. But it was like drinking battery acid, and now-"

Now he's poisoned it.

**X**


	15. Chapter 15

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Words are worse. Putting pictures in her head she can't get out. The tears slip out of control, past the reach of her swiping unsubtle thumbs, one after another.

And then he moves, starts moving for the door. "Wait-" she chokes out. If she has to do this alone, she might never recover.

He stops and turns his head. Just that. He looks defeated and she feels it, feels it everywhere, how defeated they are.

"Don't leave - me," she says, and the crying starts again and it's beyond her to stop it.

But "Kate," he breathes, and he's striding forward and enveloping her. She flinches at the sudden rush of him, the surge of movement, but his shirt soaks up the tracks on her cheeks. He smells like him, alone, like nothing has changed. "Kate, Kate."

She smacks the flat of her hand into his shoulder, harder even as she grips his shirt with the other fist, but he doesn't let go. He just - he's not clinging, she's not being manhandled, it's more like he's holding her together.

"If you can at all forgive me," he starts, his voice vibrating around her. "I didn't-"

"Stop," she cries. "Just - give me - a second." Every time he goes on, she has more images, more scenes in her head and they get laid over their one night, erasing whatever heat and love she found with him and redrawing it into blonde hair and perfect proportions and his voice calling _her_ name and now she's crying harder.

"Okay," he whispers. "Whatever you need. Long as you want." His palms are wide against her back, so wide, as if bracing her, keeping her ribs together so her heart can't fall out. But his hands were on that woman, and he took her-

God, it's mortifying and terrible, all this grief for no good reason, for _no_ good reason - she did this. She did it to herself, put them in this position because she is abysmal at relationships; they all go wrong; she has one foot out the door from the start because she believes that love will leave her first - abandonment is her default setting. She thought nothing was better than something maimed, something broken with him, but she was selfish even in _that._ Even in nothing, she kept taking and taking from him, drawing strength and encouragement from every cup of coffee he presented her with and every wonderful smile and all those theories they talked through like foreplay.

But she never said a word; she never gave him anything at all, and it hurts so badly and it's just her own fault. _She_ abandoned him.

Kate has this insane urge to go find Castle and hang out at Remy's until it doesn't ache with every breath. Like she just wants her partner - while her - what? - her baby's father tears her heart out.

"Beckett," he mutters, his voice as tight as a fist. It helps somehow, or maybe it just re-draws old lines, slaps new mortar onto the old bricks, gives her a wall to prop herself up against. _Beckett_ is a way to retreat.

But if Kate retreats now, she's not sure she'll ever come out again. That's what she did the summer she didn't go to the Hamptons. And it was precisely the same situation as now, saying too little too late. Saying nothing.

She has to stop giving him _nothing._

"I'm sorry," she blurts out.

Castle stiffens, like a block of wood carved around the imperfection of her.

"I messed this all up," she croaks. Her throat is thick with tears yet to be shed and she tries to swallow them down. "And I hurt - hurt you. And it _hurts_ and I'm sor-sorry that I'm wrecking everything-"

"God. No, Kate, no." His hand cups the back of her head and she crashes back into his shoulder, pressing her swollen eyes into his shirt. "Never, never. It's not wrecked; we haven't even got this thing out on the road."

And suddenly she's laughing. It's so absurd, and it makes her think of that woman driving his Ferrari and it's like a punch to the gut so that she knows she sounds hysterical, and maybe she is - she's pregnant, and even though she's felt fine, this is not fine.

"I don't want to hurt you," he whispers. "In my better moments, when I'm not being an immature ass, I promise you, Kate, I never want to hurt you."

She chokes on her laughter and tries to corral the rest of it, the messy impossibilities of them being here, and the ache, and how she wishes she could leave this un-driven wreck and go find Castle because this _is_ Castle; it's him.

It's just - him. Castle.

"I just want you," she says fiercely, lifting her head from his shirt. "Nothing else is - I love you so much it hurts."

His hands tighten, squeezing her ribs together, his face blank. "You - do? After... oh, God, I love you. I love you, Kate, and I want you so badly, want this baby, I want anything you can give me, anything you want-"

"Just don't - don't leave to myself." She clutches fists in his shirt. "I don't like what happens when I'm left to-"

"No, I won't leave. Not if you want me here. I'll - whatever you want, I can do whatever you want, Kate."

"Stay." She sucks in a ragged breath to feel lungs that seem weighed down inside a body too heavy. "Just stay like this until I - can breathe again."

It's only when his his head bows over her that she feels his cheek against hers and the wetness of his skin, the grooves from his own grief.

He's been crying too.

She's so tired of the hurt. When does it get easier?

Maybe it never does.

**X**


	16. Chapter 16

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

It's miraculous, but Kate Beckett is in his arms.

Her skin is hot where his palm cups the back of her neck, and his shirt between them is plastered with her tears, not to mention that the underside of his jaw and neck is wet with his own, but they're still here.

Still standing.

Neither of them speaks. The room is dark and the night presses in at the windows. Kate's fist is in his shirt at the small of his back, and every breath of hers judders in her lungs like she still can't quite gather herself together.

_Stay until I can breathe again._

He's not proud of this. It will stay with him for the rest of his life, what he's unintentionally done, what he thought he was doing and what he ended up with in return for it. He thought one thing, and he was wrong, and he let impatience and his own fears deceive him into believing that everything he thought he knew was a lie. But it wasn't, and he hurt her, and all she's done is just _try. _She was just trying to be the kind of person who could be in a relationship with him; she was trying for _him_, and now he has to live with this.

He's responsible for making Kate Beckett cry.

Castle finds the courage to stroke his fingers through her hair, combing it back from her tear-damp neck. For some reason, she settles to the touch of his hand, gentled, and her tears stop. Her breath releases, and so does her fist in his shirt, and her body grows heavy against his, exhaustion sinking her into him.

He dusts a kiss at her temple, cautiously. She's limp and unresisting, entirely unlike everything he knows of her, and he can't help nudging them both towards the bed.

She sucks in a ragged breath, and he pauses, waiting for yes or no, but she turns and sinks to the mattress, crawling up towards the pillows. He follows, calculating every movement to keep from ruining whatever peace she's found, and she wordlessly rolls onto her side in a fetal position, her back to him.

He pauses at the foot of the bed, one hand planted into the mattress at her hip, but maybe this is too soon. There ought to be penance, and holding her while she cried can't be the only thing required of him.

But Rick can't help leaning in and softly kissing the rise of her hunched shoulder, closing his eyes as the scent of her fills his head.

He hopes to God he didn't ruin this. Hopes she's forgiven him, but more, that she can forget it as well. He doesn't know how he can continue if he gets this close to everything he wants and is denied.

Suddenly he feels her fingers on his cheek, curling at his ear. Her palm is warm and damp from tears and he bows his head over her, his forehead touching her shoulder. Her arm draws back around his neck, hanging on to him, holding him to her like benediction.

He folds down behind her, laying his head on the pillow with hers, his body matching the compact lines of her legs, the curve of her waist, the smooth hill of her shoulder.

She tugs on his wrist and drags his arm around her, silently, and he shifts a little closer, the heat of her skin suffusing his own.

He can finally breathe again.

He holds her carefully, staying exactly where she's put him, his elbow bent against the top of her drawn up thighs. Their fingers are tangled together; she rubs her thumb along the side of his hand, and the sensation is overwhelming. He has to press his cheek into the pillow to ground himself, swamped by a thick, choking love and a need he feels entirely ashamed of.

She's draped over his forearm, the warm press of her breasts against him. The rest of his body is stiff and cold; the only heat is where she touches him.

Kate sighs and shifts, a movement of one knee, her shoulder drawn in. All without speaking. Her hand covers his, their fingers laced, that soft and unconscious stroke of her thumb.

He's stunned by how compact her body is, how he dwarfs her, how small she's curled up. His own body is like a shield around her, as if he can protect her from himself, and he stays very still, their bodies mere inches apart.

The heavy scent of her hair and skin fills him - a smell so familiar that he can't even distinguish the cherries any longer; it's just Kate, the perfume of her presence. Warm and light. He can detect the city on her clothes too; she's still halfway undressed and it can't be comfortable, the reminder of how far they've come and how far they have to go, but he won't call attention to it.

He can feel the heat of her breasts against his curled fingertips, and he nudges his head closer to hers, the strands of her hair getting caught in his eyelashes.

He lifts his head, and she startles, but he moves closer, inching forward on the mattress until he can slide his other arm beneath the pillow. She sighs and relaxes again, and now he's holding her completely, and she's loose and warm within the haven of his arms.

Like she trusts him. Like she actually trusts his protection, trusts him to be her partner.

He lies down just behind her, and she nudges back just enough, just enough that their thighs meet, her hips bumping his lap. Castle lets out a long breath and dips his chin until his forehead rests at her nape, her hair brushing his cheeks.

She's still here. She loves him too. They can figure it out.

After a moment of just breathing in the darkness together, he realizes he's stroking - very lightly - the skin of her stomach where her shirt is unbuttoned. He spreads his hand wide and the tips of his fingers span all the way to the waistband of her panties, encompassing the whole of her stomach.

And their baby. Covered by the reach of his hand.

**X**


	17. Chapter 17

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Kate jerks awake to the slam of a door, instinctively reaching for a weapon that isn't there.

His arms tighten around her. "It's okay, just Alexis," he murmurs. His lips brush the back of her neck. "She texted me she'd be on her way out again. No need to get up."

Kate blinks slowly, body heavy and numb, drained. "Okay," she mumbles back to him, not sure if it really is.

If anything is. It's more like a truce.

She lies with him on the bed and listens to the sounds of his daughter coming inside the loft. The thump of a book bag being dumped on the floor, shoes clattering as they're kicked off, the rustling and moving around.

A cabinet door opening, the refrigerator door opening. Water pouring.

And then utter silence.

"Oh, God, I forgot," Castle croaks behind her, shifting to his elbow. "I left the ultrasoun-"

"Dad?!" Alexis practically shrieks. "Dad, oh my God, is Detective Beckett-"

Before Kate can even turn over, Castle is already hustling out of the bedroom to intercept his daughter.

"But, oh my _God_, Dad-"

The low rumble of his voice is all Kate can hear of his response. She sighs and rolls to her back, a hand over her eyes. She can hear him guiding Alexis away.

But it's not fair to leave Castle out there alone when this is both of their responsibilities. Alexis isn't her biggest fan, but Kate has been pushed too far past caring right now. So what if Alexis hates her? Can't make this much more difficult than it already is. And maybe it's time for a little more honesty, a little more _talk_.

Alexis is an adult, after all.

Kate sits up. Her legs are tangled in a throw blanket that Castle must have covered her with, and as she unwinds the soft material, her heart struggles to lift. It's a sweet gesture. He's a good father; she's lucky that she'll never have to worry about that.

She stands and heads first to his bathroom to check out the damage her crying has done.

A massive form looms out at her and Kate jerks and stumbles back to the door frame. With her heart pounding, she lets out a little laugh.

Boba Fett? From Star Wars, cape and blaster and metal helmet. That thing about killed her.

She shuffles past the eerie life-sized bounty hunter, and leans her hips against the sink to peer at her face in the mirror. Boba Fett menaces just over her shoulder, but Kate ignores him and turns on the taps, splashing cool water over her face.

Dripping, she fumbles for the hand towel, dries her face and looks again.

Not so hot. But. Better than she might have guessed. Blood-shot eyes but her skin isn't mottled, and her lids aren't swollen. Just rather - wan. She looks worn thin.

Kate glances down at her shirt and sighs, starts buttoning it back up again. A terrible surge of grief washes through her, and she has to close her eyes and tilt her chin up to keep from crying again.

No. No more. It's not attractive and it's making Castle feel like shit and he doesn't deserve that. It happened. It was her choice, both the frantic need of that night of Ryan's wedding and then to her silence to him afterwards. So she can deal with the consequences.

Kate buttons the last button, zips up her pants, and then regards herself critically in the mirror. Her hair is flat, listless, her eyeliner has smudged though the mascara remains, and she has a crease on her right cheek.

It'll have to do. She's delayed enough.

Kate can't remember what happened to her shoes, but it's likely that Castle took them off sometime after she fell asleep. She has no idea where they are now, and she'd really like to have her heels when she faces his daughter, but there's no time to look.

She moves out of the bedroom and slowly down the hall, absolutely quiet, her shirt untucked and wrinkled, her pants already feeling too tight. She can see Castle's back first, and then as she comes forward into the living room, he shifts and there's Alexis facing him over the kitchen island, the ultrasound photo in her hand and being waved around as if in emphasis.

It makes her heart clench.

"I can't believe you!" his daughter is hissing.

Kate doesn't want to know what she can't believe, and she feels this sick, panicky urge to yank the photo out of Alexis's uncareful fingers.

She can't hear what it is Castle says in response, but Alexis's face flinches, and she looks away from her father.

Right at Kate.

Alexis's mouth drops open. "Oh, my God. Detective Beckett."

Castle turns around almost comically, and his mouth drops open too. Apparently he didn't expect her out here, didn't expect her help.

The two of them are a frozen tableau as Kate comes up to the kitchen island, and before she can think about it, Kate reaches out and gently tugs the photo from Alexis's hand.

The girl flushes pink, anger or embarrassment; Kate doesn't know yet how to read her. But she turns her back on Alexis and moves to Castle's side, and for a moment, she can't let go of the ultrasound even to him.

Castle curls his palm on top of the counter, meeting her eyes. She releases the photo back to him, still with that lingering reluctance, but he cradles it protectively and slides it back into the pocket of his plaid shirt where it belongs. Safe.

Kate is dismayed to discover that she doesn't much like his daughter right now. She did, she used to, she thought Alexis was wonderful and sweet and kind, but now Kate is afraid - afraid of the misery Alexis could bring for them if she wants to, if she continues to stand in difference, indifferent.

But this is on Kate as well. She refused to give it a rest, to stop investigating her mother's case, ignoring Castle's heartfelt plea - and she got shot in front of everyone she loves. Shot in front of Alexis and Castle's mother, her own father, Lanie and the boys, even Montgomery's poor wife and family - shot in the chest as Castle tackled her to the grass. Bleeding and dying in the grass, for everyone to see. Spread the trauma around.

And everything after that decision - to kick Castle out of her apartment and do it alone - everything after that was one mess after another. That's why she's been waiting, why she's been in therapy, why she is _trying-_

But Alexis doesn't know any of this. And while it's not her business to know, it is her family that Kate's affecting.

"Kate?" Castle murmurs.

She's been standing here for a long time, staring at that photo in his pocket while they try to figure out what she's doing here.

She's still trying to figure that out herself.

Kate lets out a long breath and turns to look at Alexis. The girl's face is sour, but back behind the immature defensiveness is a hurt that hasn't healed.

Kate did that.

"I think we should all talk about this," Kate says finally. "Can we sit down?"

**X**


	18. Chapter 18

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Castle stands dumbstruck in the kitchen while Alexis actually heads for the living room. Kate has sat down in one of the chairs, leaving them the couch, unconsciously - or consciously - separating herself out from himself and his daughter.

She's the master of the interrogation; she did it to him earlier this evening, working him around to admit to a promise he didn't think he wanted to make. And if she thinks she's sending some kind of message to Alexis that Kate won't be - what? interfering? taking sides? - then he's not willing to help her send that message.

Because it's not true.

He comes around the back of the couch before his daughter can complete the journey from the kitchen, and as he sits, he grabs Kate's hand and tugs, pulling her up. She gives him a flashing look, mostly surprise, but now she's caught out in the middle, out of the chair and halfway to the couch, and Alexis is moving for the other chair.

"Castle," she chides.

"With me," he tells her. At least that much he knows. A united front.

She sinks down on the couch beside him, though there's a healthy amount of space between their legs. Alexis looks small in the chair, alone, and he's not sure that she doesn't deserve it.

He has no idea what she'll say to Kate, and he didn't have the chance to beg her to be kind - he didn't expect this confrontation, not with the way they've left things, not with the shaky truce he and Kate managed to find.

One wrong word from his daughter might bring it tumbling down.

And then Alexis speaks. "You know he's been messing around with that _stupid_ flight attendant."

His jaw drops. "Alexis!"

"Oh, believe me," Kate says. "There have been words."

"Alexis-"

"I don't _like_ her," she practically shouts. And then her cheeks flush. "She's a complete and utter moron, Dad. I like Detective Beckett a whole better than her, because at least then you're not - not - being so _shallow_. Just heartbroken."

That was a little nasty, that tacked on comment about him being heartbroken was meant to cut Kate.

But Kate glances at him, and he realizes that maybe she's waiting on him to speak to that. He doesn't know what to say to that. He barely got a chance to sound out his daughter before Kate came out of the bedroom. And now this - this attack.

He has been shallow. And heartbroken. And Alexis saw that too.

Kate sighs. "As you found out," she says. "I'm pregnant."

"Well, that seems entirely anti-climactic now, but yes, _we_ are pregnant." He shoots her a look for that singular pronoun and she scowls.

"I didn't _mean_ anything by that," she mutters at him. "Give me a break."

Alexis laughs, though it sounds a little desperate. "I think maybe you'll just have to get used to that. If you're staying."

Kate pauses and takes a breath and he can see her readjusting to the new dynamic - his daughter okay enough to laugh but still being a little mean - and he wonders if Kate knows she does this kind of thing. All the time. She does actually mean something with the words she chooses, and usually it's to lead suspects onto the path she desires, not have a conversation with Alexis. But it works there too.

"I didn't mean to sound like-" Alexis stops and bites her lip. "I guess I did. But you hurt him. A _lot_. And all the good you guys did seems - worthless. And now a baby, just like that. What's supposed to happen _now?_"

Kate doesn't respond to that, still studying Alexis, and his daughter is studying her back, but he's the father here.

"Kate and I are still talking about what happens next," Castle starts.

She presses her hand to his knee and his words die out; when he looks over at her, she's already opening her mouth.

"We know what happens next," she says. "It's just that getting there takes time we don't really have right now. So-"

"So, that's it?" Alexis says, incredulous. "We know what happens - of course we do - you have a _baby_. And what do you mean, you don't have time? It's so terribly inconvenient for you to be burdened for nine months-"

"Alexis," he says sharply.

His daughter flushes at the look on his face and crosses her arms.

Kate's fingers are claws in his knee, clutching for dear life, he thinks. He covers her hand; he didn't realize this would intimidate her so much. She puts up such a good front that even _he _doesn't see through her.

"I meant," Kate says, clearing her throat. "Castle and I - your dad and I - we know where we want to be, and it's with each other. But a lot has happened to both of us, and I have some things I have to make up for-"

"Make _up_ for?" he says, turning a startled look her way. "What are you talking about?"

She lifts her hand to his jaw, her eyes softening into something he doesn't recognize, never has understood, but always hoped-

She lightly kisses his cheek, hidden from his daughter by his own body, her mouth coming to his ear. "Quite a lot, if I made you quit waiting for me."

He struggles fiercely not to get choked up; her eyes are so sad. "I'm sorry-"

"No," she says, shaking her head. "Stop. Not right now. Just-" She curls her fingers into her hand, no longer touching him, gestures towards his daughter.

He glances over and Alexis looks fierce and angry. And probably hurt, though it seems unfair.

"Hey, pumpkin," he calls to her. She responds, her eyes jerking back to him. "I know you're worried for me. But I'm the adult here. _You_ are still in high school. For a little while longer anyway. So we'll excuse the childish behavior and start over. All of us."

Alexis's mouth drops open. He doesn't look at Kate; he's fairly certain she's just trying to keep herself together.

_You're hurting her_. They all are - they have been - and he knew it, but he couldn't quite figure out how to stop it before.

"Kate and I are going to have a baby, and yes, there's a pretty strict time table for that, like you said. But she and I both realize that nine months isn't a lot of time to work out all our issues, especially with a baby on top of that. Which means it's not going to be happily ever after."

"But it will," Kate says.

He glances back at her, a fast look, because he really needs to see her face after a statement like that. She's just as fierce as he heard in those words, and he can't help smiling. The fight in her - that's for his good, that's for _them_.

"But it will be," he agrees, turning back to his daughter. "And you're a part of that, Alexis. You've been here for all of it, seen us both struggling with it, and you'll - unfortunately - see a lot of messiness in the next few months too. I did some things I'm not proud of-"

"And I've been silent - lying," she amends. He can hear the unsteady breath she takes. "I've been lying because it was easier, and because I'm not strong enough to tackle anything more complicated than just - breathing, sleeping through the night without nightmares - but this is forcing me to confront that. And-"

"You have nightmares?" Alexis interrupts. "I - do too."

"You have nightmares?" he says, staring at her.

She flushes. Kate's fingers slide over his knee and squeeze and his heart rate doubles; between Alexis and this strange new freedom he and Kate have to just touch each other - he's not sure he knows which way is up.

"You saw me get shot," Kate says. "And your dad - I think he tackled me? I don't quite - parts of it are gone. But I imagine that hearing the gunshot and seeing him down..."

Parts of it are gone? Well, no wonder she never said anything. It would be hard to know if the memories that were there were real. Why has he not thought of that?

"He tackled you but-" Alexis chokes. "I thought you got shot, Dad. I thought-"

Castle jerks up from the couch and stands to envelope his daughter in a tight embrace, tugging her up with him. "It's okay. We're okay. I wasn't shot." _It was Kate; Kate was shot and of course she has nightmares and-_

He turns around and looks for her, holds his arm out to the woman on his couch. She shakes her head once, and he folds his arm back around Alexis and frowns over her head at Kate.

_Not about me_, she mouths, the words so faint that he only hears a bare echo of them.

Alexis grips him tighter, clutching at him, and he aches to comfort them both - Kate and his daughter - but right now he has to choose.

**X**


	19. Chapter 19

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Kate clasps her hands and presses them between her knees, watching as Alexis nods in agreement to something Castle has said.

He offered her a chance to get in on the embrace, but she's pretty sure Alexis wouldn't be comforted by her. She'll wait right here. She has a feeling this isn't the end of things, and she wants to do this right. Be good for them, finally, after causing a lot of anguish and trauma these last few months.

Castle turns his eyes to her again, asking her a question she doesn't have the answer for. Alexis was right - they have no idea where to go after this - and Kate is feeling her way blindly, hoping that giving the two of them this moment will be better for them all in the long run.

Alexis shifts out of her dad's arms and swipes the back of her hand under her eye. "I'm sorry," she says. A little mournfully. A lot more melodramatic than Kate ever expected from her, and maybe that's what this has been these last few months. Just a little flare of drama when she felt out of control.

"Apology accepted," she says, though it feels weird. Like a mediated school yard fight. "But can we talk about - a few things?" She cuts her eyes to Alexis's father. "Castle?"

"Of course."

"Um, okay," Alexis is saying. She moves to sit back down, rather primly in her chair, tucking her school uniform skirt under her. "But I - I really am sorry."

"Oh, I don't mean like - this isn't a lecture," she says, trying not to laugh. "Castle? I wasn't-"

"No, I know," he says, and his smile is crooked, turned up on one side for her as he sits down. "But maybe she ought to get one."

"Dad!"

Great, this is how it's going to go, isn't it? He's going to make her the bad guy. "Well, I think we have all three done our share," Kate answers, giving him a look. If he wants to lecture his daughter later, out of her hearing, then fine. "But we've only got nine months to figure this out, don't we? Or - well - only six more to go."

"You're three months along?" Alexis blurts out.

Oh, God, she's three months pregnant. "I - yes."

"We just found out," Castle says, beaming. _Beaming._ He's so proud, and he says _we _like he was there. But he will be, he will be.

"Six months is all we have left to - I don't see how this will work if - I just want-" She cuts herself off before she falls apart, takes a deeper breath. She's still absolutely terrified, when it comes down to it.

And Castle looks at her helplessly. He has no idea what she's trying to say; how can he? She can barely come up with it.

"This baby will be your - little brother or sister," she says finally, releasing a breath. "And I think that's important."

Alexis's mouth opens, but no words come out.

Kate nods to herself - that is, essentially, what she was trying to work through. Family. Her own is - broken up - has been disfigured by death, and the idea of having a built in kind of family, people who will already love this baby, that's hugely appealing. It's such a _relief._

"A little brother or sister?" Alexis says finally. "I... I can - you don't mind?"

Kate blinks.

"Why would she mind?" Castle says, frowning first at Kate, as if it's her fault. Maybe it is. She has no idea what Alexis means.

"Mind what?" Kate asks.

"Just - that... me," Alexis says quietly.

"_Mind_?" Kate says, stunned.

But Castle is already talking over her, hastening to reassure his daughter. "You'll be a wonderful big sister, Alexis. I'm so proud of you already. You-"

"No, I know you do, but - does Detective Beckett?" Alexis interrupts, something in her face very small.

And whatever it's been lately, whatever the looks thrown at her from this girl, whatever disparaging things said to Castle behind closed doors, Kate can't even begin to care in the face of this - this smallness. As if her whole life was somehow swept aside, and she didn't know how to handle it. Not being the center of her father's world.

She's a girl; she's not an adult. And Kate, even though she's supposed to be an adult, hasn't managed mature behavior either, not when it comes to Castle.

"I'd be - honored," Kate says, not looking at Castle. "I've been thinking of - us, you and I - like it's a choice you don't have to make. In my favor. And so I - thought I'd just - leave you alone, let you make your choice, and I'd find a way to deal."

Castle is frowning fiercely, opening his mouth to say something, but she stops him with a quick look.

It is a choice, isn't it? They all have to make this choice even if they're all stuck in it. Still a choice - to love, to be more, to be family. Blood doesn't make it so. A baby doesn't make it so.

Alexis is hunched in the chair, shoulders down, elbows tight against her sides. But she takes a deep breath and says, "I've - been thinking, I guess, that I wasn't getting any choice at all. I'm sorry, Dad, for what I've - how I yelled at you. I just didn't want you to die."

Oh, _God_, does that sound familiar. Castle makes a helpless noise and bows his head, scraping a hand down his face, and Alexis looks absolutely miserable.

And Kate laughs.

She didn't mean to; it's just been a really awful and wonderful and terrifying day, and they are both looking at her like she's lost it.

She waves a hand and shakes her head. "No, um - I just - have heard that recently, and it seems like - oh, never mind."

"I said that," Castle grunts, glancing at Alexis. "That's why Beckett thinks it's so funny."

"Oh, God," she gasps, laughing again. "I really think we need to stop calling me Beckett. Alexis - especially you. No more _detective_. It's Kate. And Castle, you're just reinforcing it."

"'And Castle'," he mimics. "Not like you can stop it either. It just rolls off the tongue."

Alexis laughs then. "Well, okay. I'll drop the Detective part, at least."

"Oh, no, you can't call her Beckett," Castle makes a face. "I call her that."

"But you don't even call her Kate. How am I supposed to call her by her first name if you can't?"

"See?" Kate says, poking his shoulder. "And the last thing we need is this baby calling me Beckett."

Alexis spills out into surprised laughter, and Castle lifts both eyebrows at Kate, wriggling them as if she's said something lewd.

She hasn't. Not really.

But it is strange. They're going to have a baby. Soon.

"You do know that you've made it my top priority now, right?" he says, leaning in too close.

"What?" she murmurs, caught by the look in his eyes.

Predatory. Hungry. Needful.

They got stopped in the middle of what might have been - what would have been - something seriously hot. She feels her body shifting towards his without her say, and his lips skim her ear.

"Baby's first word: Beckett."

**X**


	20. Chapter 20

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

"So - you guys, like, love each other?"

Castle freezes, his eyes still on Kate, the tease dying on his lips. Alexis's question lingers in the air, and he swallows, tries to find something that will - at all - do this justice.

Kate's cheeks flush; she looks to Alexis. "Yes?" she says, her eyes traveling back to him.

"Was that a question?" he whispers, unable to look away.

"You didn't say anything," she mutters back. She looks - a little shy. No, not shy, exactly. Unconfident. She looks unconfident, and he wishes that weren't the case.

"Of course I love you," he says. He turns to Alexis. "We love each other."

"You love him?" Alexis says, pointedly, not looking at her father. He's not happy with Alexis so boldly asking something that ought to be between himself and Kate.

"I do," Kate says, and he feels her hand flip on his knee, fingers opening as if seeking reassurance - or maybe giving it.

He takes her hand even as his heart gives a helpless little pulse.

Alexis scowls. "That's not good enou-"

"Yes, Alexis, it is," he says sharply, giving her a look. "What Kate and I - that's between us. We've had conversations, we've been through things, we _know_-"

"Castle," Kate murmurs quietly, flexing her fingers around his.

He doesn't look at Kate; he keeps his eyes on his daughter. She used to be the little girl he rarely had to scold, let alone punish. She would ground herself for minor infractions; those big blue eyes would fill with tears and she'd hug him around his neck and promise never to do it again, and he felt like the luckiest - and best - father in the world.

Alexis flushes scarlet, clashing with the orange of her hair, and she lowers her eyes.

For the first time, he's seeing his daughter as a young woman and not that little girl. A young woman with a very different reasoning than his own, who has perhaps been allowed to think herself an adult for far too long.

He doesn't know where to go with that. It's - kind of too late, isn't it?

"Castle," Kate sighs.

He turns back to her. "No," he says softly. This much he knows. "What goes on between us doesn't involve anyone else. No one else gets to judge. We'll find our own way."

Kate nods shortly, but her eyes are on Alexis.

"Dad?"

He feels like he's caught in the middle, ping-ponging between Kate and Alexis. He turns back to his daughter and she's holding her elbows, chewing on her bottom lip. "Yes, Alexis? Did you-"

"Is it enough for you, Daddy?"

This is a conversation they've had; she's bringing it up on purpose. He hopes she remembers his answer then, because it's changed. Obviously it changed a few weeks ago when Kate - when he got things confused, when he let his heart get broken by a misunderstanding.

"Castle?"

He squeezes Kate's hand without looking at her, talks to his daughter. "It's more than enough, pumpkin. It's not even about that anymore."

Alexis deflates in her chair, sinking back. She suddenly looks like that tiny little girl again, the one he carried home from the park with sticky, ice-cream-melt fingers because she'd played all afternoon and was absolutely worn out. The little girl who used to put her cheek on his shoulder and nestle down against him, one small hand curled in the collar of his shirt to hang on for the ride.

Castle sighs. "Alexis. I know you said you were studying at a friend's, but are you staying long enough for dinner?"

His daughter jerks her head up, flushing again, her gaze slipping past him to glance at Kate. "Um. I wasn't going to. Senior exams start soon and I have AP tests. But-"

"No, don't let us ruin your hard work," Castle says quickly, releasing Kate's hand and standing. "Want a snack before you go?"

"Um, sure." Alexis takes his proffered hand and rises, but he can see she's still eyeing Kate nervously. This has been an honest but awkward conversation, and Castle himself isn't so sure where things stand. Only that everyone is going to try, which is a lot better than he hoped for at the beginning of this day.

"Want some carrot sticks and that hummus dip? I'm making a stir fry thing for dinner, so you can help me chop before you go." He knows he's too garrulous, talking too loudly, trying too hard. He herds Alexis towards the kitchen to give Kate a chance to catch her breath - or escape if she needs it - but his daughter ducks under his arm and strides to the couch.

Kate stands slowly, as if rising to meet a challenge, but the hesitation on her face twists his heart. It's for him, because of him, because this is his daughter. She wouldn't take this from anyone else.

Alexis leans in and embraces Kate swiftly, so that Kate just stands there astonished, her arms pinned to her sides, her gaze on him as if for help.

Castle holds his breath.

"I just ought to say congratulations," Alexis says in a rush. "I'm - I can't imagine how you feel, but I don't want my problems - I'm really not looking to make it worse for you. I promise. I know it's already hard."

Kate stops looking at him; instead her eyes cut down to Alexis and her arms come up, embracing his daughter. "Oh, Alexis, you've got it all wrong. I'm not making the best of a bad situation. It's actually pretty wonderful."

**X**


	21. Chapter 21

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Castle just keeps smiling.

It almost hurts, how much joy gets bounced around the kitchen from just that one, unstoppable smile. She looks up and he's smiling, and watching her as his daughter says something, and his whole being just beams. He's smiling so hard that his eyes are permanently crinkled, slitted deep against the lines of his face, and it does funny things to her insides, little butterflies and cartwheels and heat.

Maybe it's the stove top.

Kate has never been quite so domestic with him, but it's easy enough, browning chicken while Castle slices carrots and zucchini and squash with his daughter, adding ingredients to the stir fry as they're ready, trading off between jobs. She made breakfast a couple times when her apartment blew up, and it _was_ a way to say thank you for last night, but only because she was staying here until she could find a place. She never let any of his family help (back when Alexis liked her, looked up to her somehow, those young eyes following her every movement, a little idol worship that made Beckett nervous).

It's comfortable, and comforting at the same time, to be back here in his kitchen with a few more years between them. But at the same time, their dynamic should be thrown off with the addition of a third, with his daughter here (who doesn't quite like her, and definitely has no lingering hero worship). And yet, Kate still knows what comes next, knows the next move. Castle gives little inclinations of his head or his eyes catch hers, and it's just like being at the Twelfth.

It's kind of scary how easy it is - working in sync.

When Alexis disappears after a handful of carrots, heading upstairs to change for her study group thing, the forcefully cheerful chatter falls off and it's just the two of them. The kitchen is replete but only with the sounds of vegetables in the skillet and the chicken popping in olive oil.

Kate wonders if this is how it starts to fall apart. Without the child in the room, will this awkward silence be their life together? With the baby to keep them, can they be kept?

She turns at the stove to look at him and Castle's face is still beaming. It's - kind of beautiful. His smile. She's the only one here with him, and yet such happiness radiates from every molecule.

"You're going to break something with that," she murmurs.

He glances down at himself - down! - and she laughs, caught by surprise with how quickly the whole thing has turned inside out and he hasn't even _said_ anything. They've barely spoken to each other and still there's so much filling up the room. One rather suggestive _gesture_, and her heart beats too fast, eager to make his glance true.

Eager.

She releases the chicken to the pan and reaches out for Castle's wrist, tugging him by degrees towards her at the stove. He slides in next to her, places his hands on her hips, their bodies close but not yet touching. She's still surprised, constantly off-kilter tonight, and now it's because of how natural this is, how she doesn't mind being barefoot and pregnant at his stove (oh, God), doesn't even mind his hands on her and thumbs dragging against her skin under her shirt.

Because the look on his face now is nothing at all like the look on his face then, with a stewardess driving his car, coming in late to the precinct, ignoring Kate to talk loudly with the boys. The look on his face is joy and awe and a sweetness that makes her think that _he_ thinks he loves her more than she can possible love him, and this is all so new - and it's for her.

It's only for her.

Kate slides her arms slowly up his chest and twines them around his neck, leaning back to keep his face before her, a fixture of her vision. Leaning back presses their hips flush, so nicely snug that heat blooms in her belly. His eyes dip down to her mouth, something heavy over-taking his face. Lust re-casting his visage so that his jaw looks hard and his mouth aggressive and his eyes - his eyes dark even as they're blue. So dark.

That's only for her as well. No damn stewardess gets that.

There's a moment of acknowledgment when he seems to hear her unspoken claim, and his hands tighten on her hips so that he grips her very bones.

Kate doesn't want to have to ask, doesn't want to have to give permission either. She doesn't want there to be a need for forgiveness, or jealousy, only-

He leans in all at once and presses his mouth to hers, and it's not chaste or penitent either. It's raw, wounds meeting, two people angry and hurt, all the emotion that was suppressed while they were forced to be grown-ups in the presence of a third person.

He tries to possess her, he grips the back of her neck with a knot of her hair, and his hand so wide he palms the side of her face as well. His other arm bands tightly at her shoulders to keep her where he wants her, and he takes his kiss from her mouth. She pushes back, surges in to throw him off balance, up on her toes to rub her body against his so that he growls and clutches her fiercely again.

She wants bruises on her hips. She pushes him back into the counter and his elbow jars the refrigerator, his breath knocked out of him. She wants bruises on his spine so that he remembers every damn time he gets in that Ferrari.

He pushes his fingers deeper into her hair, angles her mouth.

Kate bites his bottom lip, working it between her teeth as he breathes harshly, her tongue touching the round swell of-

"I'm heading out!"

They jump apart, her heart pounding and his hair mussed and eyes wild. She presses her hand to her chest at the wound - no, just a scar, just her scar, and it's throbbing - and his gaze tracks her movement.

The clatter of boots on the stairs and then Alexis, once more bubbling and filled with herself, appears in the living room. "I'll be back by midnight-"

Castle's eyes tear away from Kate, jerking to his daughter. "Call for a car-" he has to stop and clear his throat "-if you can't get a taxi that late."

"I will," the girl says hurriedly, oblivious. She leans in and kisses her father's cheek, makes a funny face as she pulls back. "You smell like chicken and-"

Alexis's eyes dart to Kate and all that self-important confidence drops off her face with a flush.

Kate lowers her hand slowly, trying not to attract notice, but Alexis knows exactly what they've been doing. The girl turns and reaches for her backpack on the bar stool, shrugs it on with jerky movements, not looking at Kate, but definitely looking at her father. She's not embarrassed then, no. She's... what? Cautious.

She's cautious. And she wishes they were too.

Little late for that.

"I'll - um - my test is early tomorrow so I'll be going straight to bed when I get home." She blushes fiercely when she says _bed_ and Kate sighs, but she's also grateful for the warning.

There's no privacy with a kid in the house. She'll have to get used to that. Though when Alexis is in college and the baby is - an unknowing baby, well... it'll be close to private.

"Okay, um. Bye, Dad. Bye - Kate."

"Bye, pumpkin," Castle says, and Kate can only echo it, grateful at least that Alexis called her _Kate_.

And then the front door slams shut and the lock turns and they're alone.

Finally.

**X**


	22. Chapter 22

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

The chicken is browning on the stove. There are vegetables already being stir-fried. Castle is frozen where he stands with the echo of the door slamming in the loft.

Kate reaches past him and flips off the burners, one after another, click, click.

He looks at her.

"I'm not hungry," she explains. Her lips turn up.

He dives in for her, her mouth clashes against his, their bodies collide. She moans and arches - arches - up into him and he clutches her waist, grips her ass and drags her closer. Her arms around his neck again - might be his favorite, the way it pushes her breasts against him - and her fingers rake through his hair, nails at his scalp.

He hisses at the sharp sting as she digs in, but she gives him no quarter; their bodies tangled and his back hitting the center island with a crunch. She bruises his lips, he kneads her ass, she moans and drags her knee up his thigh.

So hot.

"Kate," he says, hoarse and gulping air. She doesn't leave his mouth alone long enough for any other words - but there should be words - and he growls and rolls to put her back against the counter.

They've been here. They've been this far, at this counter, and hurt each other badly before they had a chance.

He can see it in her eyes; her hands go still on his shoulder, the back of his neck. She's breathing hard and his heart is pounding out of his chest.

He grips her hips and hikes her up on the counter, shattering the deja vu, writing a new scene. Her face breaks open with surprise, arousal, and she widens her thighs, draws her legs around his waist, and pulls him in.

He grunts when they meet, his stomach to her heat, and she cups his face and bends forward, licks at his lips before taking a kiss. He's fierce with need now, blood roaring through his body, her scent, her arousal falling over him. He tears himself away from her mouth, rooting down her throat, teeth scraping skin, and she gasps, bowing back into his arms, her body writhing to meet him.

He reclaims territory he lost hours ago. Reclaims, possesses, stakes. He braces her with an arm and moves his other hand in to unbutton that shirt, that damn shirt, emblem of all the ways she was closed against him, walled up against him, _she knew, she lied, she knew_, and he rips ferociously through each button.

Her skin is soft, yellow-cream and rippling against the jerking movements of his hand. The backs of his fingers brush her belly button and she makes a sound - an urgent, needy sound - and he leans in and places a feral, biting kiss to the skin there.

Kate clutches at his head, and his knees slam against the cabinet. She swirls her fingers at his ear, gripping painfully as he's hunched over her. He releases her belly button and presses a softer kiss, spreading open her shirt and rubbing his hands up the sides of her ribs.

Her knees tighten at his shoulders, hooked there by her ankles, and she tugs on his head, pulls him up to meet her mouth. The urgency hasn't faded; it tastes sharp and bitter and tangy, like lemons, has the same sweetness to the flower, the promise of nectar. He clutches the span of her ribs, can feel how hard her heart is beating in those telltale veins, and he deepens his kiss.

She responds. Curls in around him, breathless mewls in her throat, and he memorizes those sounds, that need he's found in her that echoes his own. Desperate not to have it stop, ever stop, to never be pulled away from her again.

Her shirt gets stuck at her wrists, her shoulders wriggling to work it off, and he can't be bothered to offer help, to release her; he's a lodestone to the true north of her mouth, and his thumbs have found the underwire of her bra.

She whines in frustration, rocking up against him, and he's turned on by having her at his mercy, those noises and the effort of her body for freedom, less clothes, more skin. He takes a fistful of material in the back and twists, and her arms are pinned by her shirt, her breasts pushing against him, her mouth wide and gaping and smudged by his mouth.

He stares back at her, breathing too hard, actively restraining her, and her lips curl up into a devious and soul-crushing smile.

"Is that how it is?" she hums.

_Oh, God._

And in some twist of her torso, shimmy of her arms, she's yanking out of her shirt and trapping his waist between her powerful legs, even as her arms come around and her hands give a vicious stroke and squeeze to his pants that has him bent double. She catches his head and pulls him upright again, latches onto his mouth as she works him.

He groans and leans forward into her body, aiming to press her down to the granite, thrusting, but she flinches and jerks up, gripping his ear so hard he yelps.

"Knife - knife," she gasps. "Oh, God."

He clutches her, one shoulder and a hip and her skin bare and pressed against him, her bra heaving with her breathlessness, and her laughter comes spilling out over the top of his confusion.

"Oh," he says (he sounds inane, whipped, broken in half), "the knife."

For the carrots. And - vegetables. And dinner.

_I'm not hungry._

Her legs flex and then drop from his waist; he palms her thighs and peers past her to see the kitchen island still littered with knife and cutting board all askew. The half-chopped squash has rolled. Carrot peelings are smeared.

His blood still thunders in his head. He can feel her laughter dying against his throat as he feels her there, kissing him again, slow, wet trails of her lips, and his eyes fall closed.

She's seducing him. Touching her tongue to his collarbone, nipping down to the hollow of his throat, murmuring something to his skin he isn't allowed to hear. Her teeth at his heart, her wet, tonguing kiss after it, and he lifts his hands to cup her head. He rubs his thumbs along her ears, just to see, and when he gets to the soft skin below, just above her jaw, she moans.

She doesn't stop open-mouth kissing him. He's drugged by her. Silky hair between his fingers, heat at his throat and over his chest.

He's drugged by her and it loosens his tongue.

"I'm so in love with-"

The rattle of the door jerking in its frame interrupts him. The outraged exclamations behind it, a flurry of light-knuckled knocking, and _yoo-hoo, Richard!_ flooding through the door and into the loft.

Kate lifts her head. Blinks at him, eyes large and dark like some nocturnal creature, hair in a sexy mess around her head.

_From my hands._

When did she unbutton his shirt? And his - pants. Practically off his hips.

His Mother's voice comes loud and strident and not-amused as she calls to him from beyond the door. _So help me, Richard. If you're in there with that blonde idiot-_

Kate stiffens and her hands drop from him.

**X**


	23. Chapter 23

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Kate bows her head forward, trying to catch her breath, gather the scattered leaves of her thoughts. She's trembling, half-naked on his counter, and his mother is outside the front door demanding to be let inside.

Castle is heaving. His hands are on her thighs, heavy, pulsing with the effort of blood through his body. He swallows and she realizes she's just staring at him, everything in her leaning out to him but not able to touch.

Martha, from outside the door, _Don't mind me, oh no. I'll just go on an expedition for my keys. You keep on with her._

Her. The blonde.

"I - need my shirt," she mutters. "And your shirt is-"

The door rattles again, Martha trilling something charmingly elegant but deadly beyond.

Castle glances wildly around and comes up with her shirt, but he seems to have trouble giving it back to her. "I hate this shirt," he growls at her, and then to the door. "One _minute_, Mother."

"Be nice," she admonishes automatically - out of her mouth before she can stop it.

Castle's eyes flare back to hers, and she knows that look on his face, intent, but she pulls in her knees and toes him back, the soles of her feet flat to his bare stomach. But her legs tremble, and it's erotic despite herself.

His hands clutch her ankles, that fierce desire igniting on his face. Her toes curl at the place where his ribcage expands and she wants, vividly, to spread her thighs and draw him back to her.

No.

"Let me down," she says roughly. She can't think. His mother is rattling the door, telling them a really inventive and salacious story of her own escapades - a man in a tuxedo, a night after a show-

"Mother," Castle bellows. "For the love of-"

Kate chokes, taken by the urge to laugh, maybe hysterically, but it gives her the impetus to slide off the granite counter, shivering. Goose bumps pebble her skin as Castle steps back. He's swallowing hard and trying not to look at her. She struggles to draw on her shirt, but she can't quite get there - still rattled by their interruption, by his mother's arrival, by the words. The buttons don't seem to work.

"Castle, your shirt-" she says breathlessly.

Castle pauses, only a few feet from her. "You need it?"

"No, _your_ shirt - unbuttoned and - your pants," she says, helplessly.

He glances down, back at her, and then scowls fiercely. "I hate your shirt."

Kate blinks back at him, and now Martha is regaling them through the door about a piano player with nimble fingers, and Kate's face flushes hard as she forces the buttons through her damn shirt. But they - they just won't _go._

She doesn't like the shirt much either.

"Stop buttoning it up," Castle says petulantly, coming back to her and stilling her hands. "I can't stand it. I have... a t-shirt in the laundry room. Or one of Ale-"

"No," she groans, shoving him away. "Castle. Your mother is out there. Get your clothes straightened out and _answer the door._"

But right at that moment, they hear the rattle of keys in the lock and share a horrified look as the door swings open and Martha blazes inside.

"Richard, ha! I finally found my keys, darling. Don't stop on my account, oh no, keep _plugging away_ at it-" Martha falls off into shocked silence. "Oh, my God. Katherine."

Kate closes her shirt with one fist and turns slowly to meet his mother.

She doesn't even get a word out of her mouth before Martha is flying towards them around the kitchen island and embracing Kate with an effusiveness that practically swings Kate around. Her breath leaves her. She can see Castle hurrying to zip his pants - oh, _God_ \- while Kate clutches at her own shirt and Martha's shoulder and tries to ride it out.

"Oh, darling Katherine, what a delightful sight." A squeeze as she lets Kate go, still clinging to Kate's arms. "Please do excuse my rather sordid little tale from beyond the door. If I'd known it was _you_ he had-" Martha recovers quite gracefully from her slip by turning around and reaching out to Castle, squeezing his cheeks with both hands. "You should have _said_ it was Katherine. I'd have stayed away, Richard."

"I wish you had," Castle says mourns.

"In the kitchen, I see," Martha ignores him, glancing around at their state of dishabille, counter included. "You could have picked a better spot. There's a knife lying around. Tsk, tsk, Richard. As I was saying, the _piano _makes for-"

"Mother," Castle barks. Kate is entirely too overwhelmed by the whole thing to offer any help; all she can do is meet his eyes with her own and keep her shirt together with one fist and really try not to laugh.

It's not funny. It's absolutely, frustratingly mortifying. Being caught by his mother when all Kate can think about it how that stupid blonde got further than she did. She _hates_ that she's thinking about it, and she wants to kick him for doing it, and at the same time, she wants to drag him by the belt loops back into his bedroom and show him who - who really is in charge here.

Martha pats her shoulder. "Oh, you two, don't let me interrupt. I can stay upstairs all night. Although perhaps I should be the one to cook our dinner. Well, the walls are bookshelves, so perhaps not right away-"

The walls are shelves. Oh, God. His bedroom. And his mother. And-

"Kate, I really hate that shirt," Castle mutters. He scrapes both hands roughly back through his hair, his own plaid still hanging open.

"Darling, perhaps if we're going to stand here conversing, you should let the poor dear button her shirt. You might do the same." Martha reaches out as if she might actually do it for him, but before they can react, she's plucking the ultrasound photo from his pocket.

Castles squeaks.

Martha's whole act drops. Just - gone. The silence is so complete that Kate can hear her own heartbeat. And maybe his as well.

And that's when Kate finds her tongue. "Martha, as you can see, we have some things to talk about. But let me find something to put on. And yes, Castle, I _know_ you hate this shirt. Half the buttons are missing."

"Oh, is that what I stepped on?" Martha says gamely. But she's clutching the ultrasound against her chest, cradling it as she gazes down in a cloud of perfumed haziness, and Kate thinks the woman might cry. Or be crying already.

"Give us a minute, Martha," Kate says quietly. "And then we'll answer every question. Rick?"

Castle heaves a breath that looks both relieved and entirely frustrated. But he reaches out and takes her offered hand, squeezing her fingers, and Kate leads him - once more - back to his bedroom.

But this time everything is different.

**X**


	24. Chapter 24

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

He wants to set fire to the whole world. The whole _world._

Maybe then they'd stop knocking down his door and that shirt would stay _off._

Once back in his bedroom, Kate turns slowly and looks at him as if she knows everything he's thinking. And while it's true that often they're on the same wavelength - it's always with a case. As he's come to find out, it's never in their personal relationship.

So she has no idea how much he wants her, _craves_ her; she has no idea how much he'd like to muzzle his mother and find some deserted island to escape to. She has no-

"Can I have one of your shirts?" she says. Her fingers come up and toy with the pocket of his plaid shirt, her forearm brushing the skin of his chest in electric jolts. It's the height of eroticism, and he finds that mournfully pathetic. Light skin on skin is what has him about to drop to his knees.

But it's her skin. And her body so tantalizingly close to his.

"Have any shirt you like," he says finally.

She stands right where she is and he just stares at her, transfixed until he realizes she's waiting on him to pick one out. A shirt. He never wants to clothe her again, never. He _hates_ all shirts, all of them; he wants to reach in and snap open her bra and have it all come tumbling-

"Not to have," she tells him, as if in reassurance. "I'd give it back-"

"It's not that-"

"Besides, it would smell like me after a while, and I'd want it to smell like you."

"How many shirts?" he gruffs. "I have drawers full. I have favorites. Can you borrow one of my favorites and I'll-"

She smiles, and it's _shy_, it's that shy smile again that absolutely guts him, and he finds himself grabbing the sides of her damn shirt and using it to tug her closer, bring her right into him. Kate Beckett. _Kate Beckett._

"I love you," he mumbles into her hair, not sure why he feels ashamed of it, only that he can't look at her shy-smiling face and say it.

Her arms lift and wrap around his neck, wrap around his whole head in fact, like she's encompassing him. He feels a shuddering breath being pulled up out of him and he can smell her hair and some day soon he'll pull on a t-shirt and smell her all over it and know she wanted _his_ smell and maybe put her nose against the cotton and closed her eyes and-

"We need to tell your mother," she says softly.

"You totally killed the mood," he groans.

"I think she already did," Kate says lightly, her fingers stroking through his hair, on and on, down over his neck, behind his ears. He suddenly feels like he might cry.

"We're having a baby," he whispers.

"Now who's killing the mood?"

Castle laughs, able to lift his head from her, grinning as she slowly slides her arms down from around his neck. "All right, let's get you a shirt. Something with a superhero on it."

"Wonder Woman," she grins.

"Boring. You're far sexier than Wonder Woman." He sighs, pulling her with him. "I wish I had Electra. I looked, after you said you'd want to be her, but I never found one."

Kate bumps his hip with hers as he drags her towards his closet and the organized drawers inside. When he glances over at her, she's flushed and pretty and sweet, _new love_, his writer's brain supplies dumbly, but it is. She reaches out for a white one, but he pulls out a baby blue (oh, God, _baby_) and she takes it from him, letting it spill out unfolded.

"Oh, you're cute. Captain Planet?"

He shrugs, but he's pleased that she thinks he's cute.

"Hold this for me," she murmurs, pressing the shirt into his chest and releasing it so that he has to catch it. He holds it against himself as he watches her undress, sliding right back out of her shirt and dropping it on top of his pile of dirty laundry in the linen hamper like she belongs here.

She does belong here.

And her shirt most definitely belongs _off._

"When are you moving in with me?" he says roughly, releasing the shirt back to her.

She shrugs it on over her head and it displaces her hair so that it looks shiny and soft and he can't help touching it.

Kate billows out the hem of his t-shirt and eyes it. "All in good time, Castle. And what do you think you're playing at? There's no way you still wear this - it fits _me_."

He narrows his eyes at her.

She reaches out with both hands and pats his chest. "Too manly for a shirt this small, Castle."

He feels his chest puffing up with pride, like he's five years old, but he can't help it. She's looking at him like he's delicious and her hands are tracing over his bare chest and scratching lightly at his nip-

"Kate," he barks, gripping her wrists. "Can't do that if I have to go back out there."

She grins, that wicked smile she had on his countertop when he got demanding, and then she steps forward, sliding her arms around his waist and pressing her smile into his shoulder. He hugs her against him, her skin making the cotton of his t-shirt warm, her body close. It feels like support, like she's bracing herself for what comes next, and he's so _honored_ that it's him she wants support from.

"All right," she murmurs, leaning back to tug on his shirt. "Button it up, kitten. Time to talk to your mother."

**X**


	25. Chapter 25

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Kate isn't sure how she's supposed to talk to the grandmother of her unborn baby after said grandmother just discovered - well, how that baby got made, and in such vivid detail.

But she's dressed, and that can only be a plus, and she also has Castle's fingers at the small of her back, nudging her into the living room as if he has a right to that, to touching her.

Also the nudge helps keep her moving.

Martha is sitting in the exact same chair Alexis took for the exact (hopefully not exact) same conversation, but she holds the ultrasound in both hands like something precious. And Kate has no qualms about leaving it right there, in those hands. Safe.

Castle gestures for the couch, but Kate sinks down gratefully, not even needing the prompt, and Martha beams at her, uncharacteristically silent.

Weird.

This is weird.

She's going to have a baby, and Martha is that baby's grandmother, and the only thing _not _weird about this is the fact that Castle is the father. Why is that not weird? It just feels right, like settling into place.

Castle sits beside her and drops his hand on her knee (_oh, we're doing that now?)_ and his mother straightens up in her chair like a girl, practically wriggling. Kate has never seen their resemblance so startlingly before, how Castle's eager childishness is a reflection of his mother's same energy and verve.

Kate's family has never really done verve.

"Oh, I can't hold it in," Martha bursts out. "I'm _so_ excited. Are you two excited, darlings? How _wonderful_-"

"We're - I'm excited," Castle says, glancing back at her.

Kate stiffens. "I'm excited," she defends.

"No, I know you are-"

"But I bet you're also terrified," Martha interrupts. "It's to be expected, darling Katherine. I completely understand. Don't mind him; he's as tentative as a lamb when it comes to you. Richard, please _do_ stop worrying. She's here after all."

Worrying. Tentative? Not what she saw in his kitchen. Felt in his kitchen.

She slides a look to Castle; he's abashed, like a boy.

"I think it's a boy," she blurts out. _Oh, hell._

But Castle beams, sneaking a look her way.

"Of course, a boy! But it could be a girl," Martha warns. "Wouldn't that be - oh, but either way, how special. When did this all - well - happen? How far along are you, darling?" Her eyes dart between them, but she also keeps glancing down at the ultrasound, a kind of bemused tenderness on her face for the whole world to see.

Kate could really take lessons from her on how to act so _graceful_ within such awkward social situations_. _"I'm - a little over twelve weeks," she says.

"Twelve weeks. Three months! To think you two have been hiding all this time. I never - well there was a moment. Oh, Richard, was the whole - you know-" Martha swirls a hand in the air. "The Vegas trip and everything? An act? It was quite convincing. I was appalled at your choice in-"

"It wasn't an act. There was no act," Kate says quickly. "We aren't together. Weren't together."

"We weren't," Castle affirms, another quick glance her way. "But we are now. Of course."

"Of course," Martha echoes, but some of her exuding joy has drained out. "Of course, darlings. Well."

And have they left Martha speechless? Does everyone think they're some terrible mistake? Mistakes after mistakes.

It's such a terrible idea to get married. But she wants to. She _wants_ to, scary as it is.

"I have been trying," Kate says. She feels defensive again, sitting here with her knee pressed against his and a photo of his baby in his mother's hands. "I've been - _trying. _I didn't mean to make it seem like I-"

"It's okay," Castle says quietly, fingers on her knee again. "I know you're trying." He squeezes, his eyes are on hers, _no need for this, stop._ She stops, helpless, but it's in her like grief.

She's trying. She _is_ trying and she hoped it was enough, but it never is. Trying isn't doing, and people's hearts change. People move on while you struggle to catch up. They have one foot out the door. "I never really expected you to wait for me," she says.

"You're worth waiting for," he chokes out. "Worth every bit of it - even if I did a terrible job waiting these last few weeks."

Martha huffs. "You really did do a terrible job, Richard."

Kate laughs, startled out of herself by the interruption. She forgot, for a second, they're here.

"Twelve _weeks_ ago you two-" Martha gives a wave of her fingers between them "-and yet you listened to _me_ when I said it might never happen? Well. I am done giving you my sought-after advice. Pearls before swine. Especially when you choose not to give me all the details. How was I supposed to know?"

Kate is very still, frozen in place at his mother's inadvertent confession. Martha told him it might never happen? Martha - convinced him to - what? Leave her?

And suddenly Kate can see right through Martha's effervescent act, right through it. She's ashamed, and wanting forgiveness, same as Castle. Wanting _Kate's_ forgiveness for her part in things.

Martha told him to pass her by.

God, that _hurts._

"Mother," Castle sighs. "I wasn't going to tell you that we - for a night." He's making the same gesture Martha used, waving his fingers between himself and Kate. "It seemed an aberrance, a mistake-"

"It wasn't a mistake," Kate says harshly, finally finding her voice. She realizes her hands are clasped just under her sternum, protective.

Castle turns back to her, face blank. "I - no. I never thought - well, I did think so. When you - but that was a misunderstanding. That's all. No mistake, Kate, we just have the worst timing."

"You two have the worst _communication_," Martha scoffs. "You make your own timing. You didn't _talk_ after that night?"

"We talked," Castle defends.

"No," Kate sighs. "I left a note."

"Which I didn't get," he mutters.

"It was on the bedside table." She squirms in her spot; this feels like an inquisition. Every choice she made being picked apart. "I propped it up. Against the alarm clock."

"I believe you," he says, shrugging. "I never saw it. I never saw it and you were gone and it felt more like an invention, a dream I was trying to believe in, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I-"

"Don't be petulant, Richard," his mother says. "It doesn't make you _sound_ sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry," Kate murmurs, shifting her body so that Castle is between her and Martha, just Castle. "I think we've canceled each other out by now. I'm tired of being sorry."

"But I am sorry," he sighs. "It'd be a lot better story if I had waited for you like I thought - like I said I would."

"I don't need a better story." She wraps her fingers around his wrist, his hand still on her knee. "I don't need a white knight. This isn't Sleeping Beauty - fairy tales aren't real."

He only looks sadder. "But it should be. For you. You deserve a fairy tale."

Kate chews on the inside of her cheek to stop the flood of emotion that threatens. Instead she leans close and brushes her lips at his ear. "Just that you think I do - that's all I need, Rick. That you think I deserve the fairy tale."

**X**


	26. Chapter 26

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Really?

"We're just going to make dinner and pretend like this never happened?" he mutters to her.

Kate pushes him off her, sliding around the kitchen island with plates in her hands. "Hush. Your mother is excited for us. We're celebrating."

He narrows his eyes. "Are we, though?"

Too soon for jokes; she took it wrong. He can see that immediately, and he chases after her, that sudden drop in her eyes - from amusement to blankness. Reserve.

"I just meant," he says, taking the plates from her and setting them himself, "that I can think of much better ways to celebrate."

"But dinner will be nice," she says, heading back to the kitchen.

_Don't begrudge me my coping mechanisms,_ she threw back at him once. And his are different, his are dumb jokes and comments, and when she's in the mood, she's really in the mood, but when she's not-

He has the power to hurt her feelings pretty badly.

And that seems like such a new thing, a revelation. But obviously it's not. Obviously she's been smoothing over her hurts for a long, long time.

That's depressing.

His mother has abandoned them only for a moment, leaving Kate and him to finish the stir fry. The chicken has had time to get cold, but he dutifully follows her lead, scooping the chicken into the vegetables and turning up the heat to get things going.

He really just wants her alone again.

But he gets the idea that Kate wants a chance to regain her equilibrium, and she deserves that, even if Castle is pretty sure that means less fun down the road. Well, to be honest, he has no idea, does he? They've had one night and it was definitely fun, but it was also in the middle of a lot of not talking, and maybe giving themselves a moment to adjust is the best way to go.

"Can you hand me the soy sauce?" he says. She gives it over almost before he can get the question out, and he pours only a little into the skillet, letting the vegetables soak up the juice, mixing it with the wok. Kate brushes past his back to get glasses out of the cabinet, and he feels the warmth of her body, the trail of her fingers as she maneuvers around him.

She doesn't _have_ to maneuver, his kitchen is plenty big enough. But she's touching him anyway.

Actions speak louder than words. Being a man of words, that's not his favorite aphorism; he enjoys its opposite: _the pen is mightier than the sword._ But not with Kate. With Kate, her actions speak volumes, and eloquently, and he let himself forget that for a little while, let himself think her actions were open to his rose-colored interpretation.

"You want wine?" she says. "I'll just have water."

His throat closes up. She's having water. "Do you want me to?" he says finally, turning to look at her.

She looks caught. So confused.

"And caffeine - coffee," he adds.

Her face is crestfallen.

"Sorry," he says softly. "But I think you can have a little. Just - not your usual."

"Eight cups," she tries to laugh.

"Eight?" He raises an eyebrow.

She huffs. "Ten or so." Chewing on her lip. "You'll still bring me coffee, though?"

"Always," he says immediately.

Her cheeks flush. "Then what did you mean do I want you too?"

"Oh. I won't drink - or coffee - if you can't either. I-"

"Don't be stupid," she mutters, scowling. "We shouldn't both be punished."

He does laugh at that, but then he thinks about her, about _Kate_, and the solidarity they've managed to build despite everything. How he accomplished it over the years, finding his way in her good graces, into the light of that smile.

"No," he says then. "Partners."

Pink suffuses her neck again and she comes up against him just like that, releasing the wine glass to the counter so she can huddle at his chest, tucked into him. He lets go of the wok and wraps his arms around her, astonished, just completely astonished with where they are and how far they've come since - since this morning.

He puts his mouth down near her ear. "I'll bring you half decaf in the morning, space it out. Or we can make it here, if you're - when you're here." _When,_ he thinks, forcing himself to be positive.

"You always bring me my coffee," she mumbles. "It wouldn't look right if you didn't. Everyone would know." _I want you too._ Unspoken, but there in the closeness of her body to his, the seeking-shelter way she curls up.

"Well, they're - going to know," he chuckles. "Sooner or later."

Kate doesn't speak to that, and then he realizes they haven't talked about it at all - what to tell other people or when or how. The precinct will have to know, have to, because a pregnancy is - surely there are rules about it? And maternity leave. And-

Kate shrugs him off, backing away, and he drops his arms even as his heart drops a little as well. All the things they haven't talked about and how much more fighting he'll have to do, scratching and clawing his way into her life even still. He doesn't know what to say to even start.

But Kate is nodding over his shoulder, and he turns to see his mother coming back down the stairs, changed for dinner. He sighs and gives up the idea of an honest conversation, but he'll have to figure out a way to broach the subject.

Even though he doesn't want to. "Almost ready, Mother," he says instead, lifting his voice. "Kate, can you get out a serving bowl?"

She doesn't do talking. She doesn't even now. They've made eye contact and she follows through on his request, but she doesn't give out a meaningless, _sure_ or _coming right up_; she just silently opens a cabinet and gets the bowl, gives it to him.

But that says something, doesn't it? It's not a _no._

He dishes out their meal into the bowl, sets it aside to put the skillet in the sink and rinse it out. He lets the white noise of water blur his thoughts, but he reminds himself that they _are_ getting somewhere. They just discussed giving up caffeine and alcohol and how he's going to be her partner in that too and she hugged him for it. Or well, she - sort of hid herself against him. He's learning what that action means, louder than any words.

So when Kate swings past him to take the dish of stir fry for the table, Castle snags her hand before she can. She pauses, arrested by his grasp, and he lifts her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. That reserve disappears, and emotion is back, though he has no idea what. Warmth, at least, and that much he knows.

He used to think he knew every look of hers, used to sit in his chair beside her desk and feel those smiles like love soaking down into his bones. And then he thought he was making it all up, and what he saw when she smiled at him was a terrible pity and kindness, and he didn't want kindness and pity.

He doesn't want kindness. He wants her smile to be love, and with love comes all the hurt and struggle too, and of course, the need for coping mechanisms. Like ill-timed jokes or silence.

"Rick?" she murmurs.

"We are celebrating," he says firmly. "We're excited, and we're celebrating. Together."

Her smile returns, fuller, richer, and it's that smile from the bank when she came rushing in to free him, still in the paramedic uniform, all that gorgeous relief brimming over in her eyes.

Relief, a form of being at rest just looking at the person in front of you.

He hears his mother sweeping into the kitchen, gathering her wine glass, talking of course. He has no idea about what. He just watches Kate's relief overflow and spill out her eyes into love.

Sex is one thing, and it's great - it will be more than just great - they're already fantastic with each other there, oh yes, he knows that much. But sex isn't everything. This - this is everything.

Instead of reaching for the stir fry, Kate slides her arms around his neck and presses her whole body to his. He embraces her back, chin tucked in close to her face, the scent of her carried on her hair and skin and seeping into his blood.

"We are," she whispers at his throat. "We are."

"Oh, aren't you guys darling? Come along. We can all use a meal. Have to keep up your strength, kiddos. Kate, I've poured you sparkling water, don't worry. Richard, get the meal on the table before it goes cold."

"We are," he says back to Kate, pressing a kiss to her mouth before letting her go.

They exist.

It's more than he thought possible just six hours ago.

**X**


	27. Chapter 27

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

There's a moment of musical chairs around the dining room table, unsure where their places are now in this new dynamic. Or at least that's how it feels to Kate. Finally Castle sits at the foot - farthest from the kitchen - and gestures to his right, and Kate sinks into the chair in relief even though it's not her usual spot.

Does she have a usual spot? Dinner after the bank was robbed - she was where Martha is, at his left, and now she's afraid that sitting at Castle's right hand is supposed to mean something.

Martha is now across from Kate, and Alexis's place - wherever it might be - is empty, though Martha doesn't seem to mind the turnover of their arrangements. Kate glances to her left to gauge Castle's mood, but instead her mind is snagged on the corner of the table, this corner precisely, where the windows at her back and the wall behind Castle meet. A large corner. A currently-empty corner.

But the perfect spot for a high chair. Just reach back and pull the baby up to the corner of the table between them, and they can tag-team feeding just as they do everything else. It all fits.

"Kate?"

She swallows hard and shifts her gaze to him.

He's trying to offer her the serving bowl of stir fry, nudging it towards her plate. Kate takes it automatically, dishing out chicken and vegetables, wondering why it's so easy to imagine all of that. Here. When it was impossible to even think about it at her apartment, her head in her hands on the bathroom floor.

And like the woman has ESP or something, Martha says, "So, Katherine, when did you find out?"

Kate passes the bowl across the table to his mother. "Today." The woman takes it, giving her a delighted kind of smile, but she goes on.

"No, I mean, when did you first start to think-"

"Today?" she answers. "I haven't thought about anything other than-" She cuts herself off, glancing quickly to Castle, but he looks mildly interested and maybe these are the things they're supposed to be saying. "Than why you were acting so different."

His face sours for a moment, but she sneaks her hand under the table and lays it on his thigh, wriggling her fingers in silent plea. He takes her hand, squeezing, and leaves them their clasped hands there.

She picks up her fork with her right hand and goes for the green stuff. Folic acid, right? Or has stir frying it cooked out all the good stuff? She needs a book, she realizes belatedly. She should have googled all this on her phone the _moment-_

"Well, yes, but-" Martha laughs and waves her hand - with the wine sloshing in her glass. "To get an ultrasound appointment that fast?"

"Oh," she says stupidly. "Oh, you mean, did I guess?" And then she realizes how terrible it appears, knowing for so long - she's three _months_ \- and never saying a word, even before Castle got weird and angry and everything was different.

"How long have you known?" he says, and his eyes don't meet hers.

"I didn't know until today," she promises. And it's true. If he's willing to- "You have met me, right? I'm very good at denial."

He laughs, an explosive breath that brings his head up and his eyes to hers. "You - are. Yes."

She lets herself think it might be okay. "And I'm something of an expert at ignoring my feelings-"

"That is most definitely true."

She huffs at him, but it is true. "And I've never been very on top of - it."

"It?" he says, glancing to his mother when Martha tuts.

"Menstrually speaking, you mean."

Kate freezes.

Castle frowns. "I don't think that's an actual word, Mother."

"The joy of the English language is such that it is _now _a word," Martha says, sipping her wine and savoring it a moment. "I just used it."

Right. "Yes, well," Kate lets out a breath. Castle turns back to her and his eyes are sparkling, _twinkling_, little blue stars in the narrow crinkle of his face. He's messing with her, and his mother too, and he thinks it's funny.

He has a daughter, his mother lives with him - seriously, she can talk about her period.

"I usually skip one sometime during the year, one or two," she says finally, ignoring the laughter on his lips. "Stress, poor eating habits, sleeplessness, physical exertion. It's a kind of precarious thing, it feels like, so I didn't notice. And I don't keep _track_ exactly."

She wonders then if he _does_ because he's nosy and observant, and no. No, not right now; she can't think about just how very grossly domestic and intimate this is going to get - from the very start - with every single doctor's appointment.

There will be no honeymoon period where she can't pee in front of him and he still sneaks out of bed to hide his farts. They just won't get that time, because it'll be about her body's changes and swollen things and dilation and - God, this is freaking her out. She's freaked out. All the way. She wouldn't be surprised if a panic attack is hiding around the corner.

Castle's hand squeezes hers. "You didn't think about it, and you didn't want it to be true, but you scheduled an ultrasound?"

"No, my doctor did," she sighs, trying to release her panic out with her breath, with her hand squeezing his back. "I made a regular appointment and saw the doc on my insurance - first guy available in the group, because this morning was the only time I had free - and that was the first thing he said. He didn't even look at me."

"Were you sick?" Martha asks. "Richard gave me terrible morning sickness. It was such a trial. I thought I'd contracted the worse 24-hour bug, but you just hung around, darling." She smiles and pats his hand, and Rick gives a mocking grimace.

"Well, thanks. The stomach flu that won't quit." He glances back at her with some amusement, but concern as well. "Do you - have that? I mean, is it bad-"

"No," she answers. Answers before she can think at all.

"Oh, that's good. You're lucky," Martha trills out, raising her glass in salute. Her eyes drift to Rick, and Kate realizes the woman has figured it out already.

And Castle is studying her. "Not sick. So... why did you go at all?"

_Because I knew_.

She just stares at him helplessly.

"Oh," he breathes out slowly. His head bobs. "Right."

_And I didn't tell you._

"It's always good to get the facts first," Martha says, gesturing to her. "I completely understand. Arm yourself with knowledge."

"Yes," she rushes out. "And by then, Castle, you weren't talking to me so much as snapping my head off, and I cared more about that than-"

"A baby."

"The thought of one," she says, rather hollowly. Dinner was such a terrible idea. She should have jumped him in his closet, tugged off his pants, proved herself then and there. Words will never work.

But 'proving' herself that night of the Ryans' wedding hadn't worked, had it? It had spectacularly backfired on her. _Now we know what we're waiting for_? Ha. She achieved worse than nothing that night, she-

Got pregnant. Like an idiot. What did she expect? That first time with a condom and then the wild thought, _oh hell, fuck it, I'm on the pill_, and she was in love with him, and he with her, and maybe a dark terrible part of her wanted to be ruined-

Ruined?

Ruined.

"I'm sorry," Castle says suddenly. His grip on her hand returns, fiercely, and she lifts her gaze to him. "I'm sorry, Kate. I wasn't there for you when - of course you were - and I was being an ass-"

"I hurt you," she cuts in.

"An ass," he frowns. "And conveniently forgetting four years of-"

"_Four_ years?" she scoffs.

His head tilts. "Of trust." His lips quirk. "And you were crazy about me. Everyone could see it."

Her mouth drops open. "I _hated-_"

"You adored me."

"You were annoying, Castle. You _were _an ass."

"And yet you couldn't keep your hands off me-"

"You're crazy." But he's riled her up again, and in doing so, the self-doubt burns away, the guilt and soulsickness. Just like that, his 'crazy' has pulled her out of her own head.

Out of her own death spiral.

Nothing's ruined at all. He's still looking at her with that deep grin, and even if she _was_ hiding, and even if she will be in the future, he has hope. She has, at least, given him hope for them. _Now_ he knows what they're waiting for, building towards.

And he, in turn, buoys her with it.

"I didn't want to know, but I was afraid I was," she tells him. "I was - afraid. Because I didn't have you any more and a baby was - should be for love. I'd have to - I didn't even let myself get that far down the road. I made the appointment, he told me I was, and I went straight to the ultrasound tech two floors up. It happened in moments, but it was a long morning. And then I came here. To you."

Castle leans in and lightly kisses her lips, and it's light only because he's still smiling so broadly. "Thank you." His fingers caress her jaw.

She lets out a long breath, wishes she felt more relieved, but she's grateful for the flush of arousal that washes her clean of everything else.

"Straight here?" Martha puts her glass down with a heavy clink. "You haven't told your father?"

Castle jerks back, his face dissolving into panic.

**X**


	28. Chapter 28

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Kate touches his arm, something entirely and wonderfully soothing about the way she strokes her fingers over his forearm just below his shirt. And he is - almost - soothed.

Almost.

"It's okay. He won't mind that Martha and Alexis already know." She's leaning in close, and now that he has the distraction of Jim Beckett looming on his horizon, it allows him to see something else very clearly.

This is what Kate looks like when she's in love - and she's been in love for... all this year. At least. _At least_. She's bumped shoulders with him and given him that same look from the side of her eyes; she's smiled at him with her whole heart in it. She's _been_ like this for months now, even when she was discomfited and unsettled by him, even when she was being elusive - she was in love with him.

And he _felt_ it; he knew it somewhere in him, responded, warming to the sun burning in her eyes. But without the words as proof, as his cornerstone, it was all too easy for her looks and smiles to fall like a house of cards. An illusion that collapsed.

But her eyes, her looks, her touches say she loves him, even if it's hard, even if they have to tell her father, even if his family is driving them crazy with their interruptions.

He lays his hand over hers and tries to be calm, to rest in the assurances she already gives. "Tell him soon though?" he says quietly. He knows his mother is listening attentively, but when has she not?

Kate smiles. It just - knocks him down, seeing her like this and knowing what it means. _Knowing_. Having not just the strength of his own beliefs, but hers as well.

"Tonight," she says. "After dinner, I can call him. I'll tell him then."

"You can't deliver news like this with a _phone call_."

She blinks, her smile fading as she withdraws just slightly.

He grips her fingers. "Kate. On the phone? No. If it were Alexis-"

Martha interrupts with a snort. "Oh, God forbid. Not for another few years." She holds up a hand as if to ward off a vision of the future.

Castle shudders. "Only a _few_? No. That would make our kids - no."

At his right, Kate suddenly chokes. He turns quickly to look and she's smothering laughter into a hand. Still, he's pretty sure he sees that same bubble of desperation. Kate having his kid and his kid having a kid. And-

He has to shake that off. Put it out of his mind. "Please, for the sake of fathers, have a face-to-face conversation."

"O-okay," Kate stutters. "I'll see if I can meet him for break-" She shakes her head, a little bite of her lip as she swiftly rakes her eyes over him. "Lunch. A _late_ lunch, I think."

Late lunch. Because they'll be - ahem - sleeping in.

His heart picks up, his chest grows tight like his skin doesn't fit. She snakes her fingers over his knee and slides up his inside thigh, and Castle grunts, catching her wrist.

"Ka-ate."

He tries not to crush her fingers, but he's afraid he's lost some control here. He's always prided himself on his endurance and stamina, his concern for his partners in bed, but they're not in bed and she's going to break him.

She's going to break him _tonight_.

"It'll be fine, Castle," she murmurs. Her voice is some rare combination of melodic and husky, like she breathes sex. "I'm a grown-up, not a high school senior."

He gulps, some of that sex disappearing at the words _high school senior_. Like his own daughter, _she_ is someone's daughter too. "Maybe I should talk to him first? Before we go in there and drop a bomb like this. Or, hell, maybe we shouldn't lead with the being pregnant part, but I should ask him instead for his permission-"

"Did you miss the part where I said I'm a grown-up?" she cuts in. "And what makes you think you're going with me?"

Castle gapes at her, rallies fast when he realizes she's not kidding. "Kate. Of _course_ I'm going with you."

"Not if you're going to pull that stone age crap - asking _permission_."

"Well, a heads-up would be nice, don't you think? Respectful at least."

"Of _whom?_ It's not respectful of me to ask _someone else_ for permission to engage with _me_ in a relationship that will change my whole life - not to mention shape my future and every decision I make from here on out?"

Castle glances quickly to his mother, but she's no help at all. She's chuckling and sipping wine like she's at a show, and she pretty much is, because Beckett is clearly just getting started.

"Or is it that you're being respectful of my dad? Because he had such big part to play in any of this? What you and I have found, or the _work_ I have put into fixing my issues that _he_ had a role in creating anyway?"

Oh, hell. There's - something very deep and dark back there. He forgets sometimes that he father was an alcoholic, that she had to save his life.

"Castle, no one gets to give you permission to knock me up," she growls finally, "but me."

"Oh, no, not _that_. I just want to offer your dad a kind of head's up," Castle says, relieved. "A way of acknowledging his role in your life and now - well, I'll have a role in your life."

"That doesn't sound any better."

"I'm-" He does a helpless shrug, casting another look at Martha for help. But he's getting nothing. "I'm not sure what's wrong with _talking_ to your dad."

"How would you like it if I asked your mother if it was okay if I took you back to my place and had my way with you?"

Martha laughs, sparkling and rich, and Castle gives her a withering glance. "I'm not asking your dad if it's okay if I have my way with you. That's hardly respectful. I'd _like_ to ask him for your hand-"

"Well, guess what, Castle? He doesn't have my hand. I do. He can't give me away - he doesn't _have_ me."

He huffs. "If you _did_ ask my mother to marry me, to _give_ me away, I'd think it was actually sweet. Considerate. You're right, you're not a high school senior, and I'm not the captain of the football team, and we didn't do something stupid under the bleachers, Beckett. What I want to do tomorrow is have lunch with your dad and talk to him - the same way you sat down with me on that couch and talked with Alexis."

That shuts her up.

He lets out a breath, but he's all charged up now, battle-ready in that way only Kate Beckett can accomplish. Equal parts frustrated and turned on, the way she does it for him, pushes him to find better words, to _do_ better.

He really wants his mother to leave.

"Martha," Kate says, her head swinging to his mother. "May I have your permission to-"

"Kate," he groans.

"Permission granted, darling," his mother says, waving a hand. "Have your way with him. And actually, it is rather sweet, just as he said. To be considered."

Kate sighs, as evidently she doesn't feel she's made her point, and she _hasn't_ because Castle is right. No matter how old Kate is, she's still Jim's daughter.

And yes, it's her own hand he's asking about, but he does feel they're in damage control mode right now.

"Beckett, I just don't want your dad to hate me," he blurts out. "He's your family. And you're mine. So - he's family too. Which means we all have to somehow get along even if it's just at Thanksgiving."

He won't dare mention Christmas. They'll have a baby by Christmas. Oh, my God, they'll have a baby for their first Christmas together.

"You're my family too," Kate says then. Her eyes are that melting chocolate brown, softening towards him. "And my dad already likes you, Castle. You have nothing to prove."

That still feels like a _no_ on the lunch.

"I want to go," he tries again. He has to try. This feels like a test of their promises. If she can't take him with her to talk to her own father, then she's going there to confess, not to celebrate.

Her lips thin in a line, but she squeezes his knee and lets go of him. "We'll see."

Kate takes up her fork again and moves to resume dinner, but he can't. He hasn't won, it doesn't feel like, and before she took this conversation off the rails, he was trying to say something.

He's trying to stand up for them, trying to _make_ a stand for them, after the last few weeks of savagely denying them.

"We're partners, Kate." He pauses to be certain the words are right. "And it may not be life or death back-up we're talking here, but it is life. Our life. You ought to - you might need me in there."

Kate puts her fork down. She's studying him, and it's a great effort of will to prevent himself from squirming in his chair.

"Okay," she says finally. She pauses so long that he thinks that might be all he's going to get, but then she speaks. "I ought to need you. But if you even _hint_ at asking for my father's permission-"

"No, no," he hastily assures her. "Wouldn't dare."

She gives him a long stare, and then he really does squirm.

The edges of her lips quirk; she gives him a crooked smile like she knows exactly what it's costing him.

But now that he's finagled an invitation to lunch, his low-level anxiety returns. If he can't respectfully ask her father's permission, he's not sure how this is going to go well for him.

At all.

**X**


	29. Chapter 29

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

She's not sure what this urge is to do it all herself. To close ranks. Wall herself off.

The longer she sits here eating food that she can barely taste, listening to conversation without doing much to add to it, and in general feeling like she somehow managed to trample over his heart _again_, she can't explain it even to herself.

She's not property to be bargained for, but that's not even what has her defensive. That was just a convenient and plausible argument for the real thing she's hiding, the real issue at stake here. She lashed out because she's wounded, but what is the real wound?

Kate wants to sneak a phone call to her father and warn him: _tomorrow is going to be awkward, I'm sorry, but Castle thinks he has to do this with me._ A warning. She feels the need to _warn _her father. Because she and her dad are very much alike, and she can't bear to have witnesses to her and her father's private grief.

That's what it is. Grief. Again. Blocking the way forward.

Her mother isn't here; she'll never be here. Johanna won't be here to see her grandchild, won't hold the baby or complain about Kate's choice of names or give Kate nosy but accurate advice. She won't be here. Her mother is gone and she and her father will have to face, all over again, just how much is missing.

The lack.

She is compounding their grief exponentially. Every holiday a million times more unbearable, every milestone made more poignant for the missing.

Kate still wants to close her skin over the wound, hold herself together.

That's all it is, that's everything. Even Castle, who has said to her, _I forget sometimes that you live with this, _can't understand what it is to be less than you should be - he never had his father to begin with.

"Hey," he says suddenly, softly, his voice an intrusion she never minds. Kate glances towards him and sees he's risen half out of his chair, one hand reaching for her plate. "You finished, Kate?"

"Yeah," she admits, relinquishing the fork. He clears her plate and his own, takes his mother's as well - there's a look between them that Martha seems to be ignoring - and he places their dishes near the sink.

He's already running water and scraping off her plate (she's the only one who picked at her food), and Kate rouses from her introspection to clear their glasses from the table as well. Martha stands herself and brings the serving dish of stir fry towards the counter.

"Darling, look in that second cabinet-"

Kate does, opening it at his mother's direction.

"-And get me one of those clear containers. The blue lid, Katherine, yes, that's it."

Kate brings her back a tupperware container for the leftovers, and then she finds herself standing strangely between Castle and Martha, wondering what she should do. They already have their own rhythm, their family dynamic, and Kate is odd man out.

And someday soon, she has to add her father to this mix. Both of them, standing on the fringes wondering how they got here, what they're supposed to do now.

The table has their cloth napkins in various states of use, so she heads that way and gathers them up, takes them back to the laundry room.

The second she's out of sight, they start talking. And the acoustics bounce Castle's words right back to her, plain as day.

"Mother, can't you - you know - make yourself scarce?"

Her cheeks heat up, and Kate slowly lowers the cloth napkins to the top of the washing machine, dawdling long enough that maybe he'll convince Martha. She really needs - him. No more halting conversations and talking around a thing, no more hazy plans and fruitless arguments. She wants him.

"Darling, I would, but I have the suspicion you both need me."

"Not for that, we don't," Castle says dryly.

Kate presses her lips together, sinking back against the wall. _Not for that._

"No, but perhaps for some actual communication. Every time I ask a question, it's another thing that neither of you have even discussed. You don't know the first thing about each other-"

"We've been partners for four years!"

"Not when it comes to raising a baby together. To _marriage_. You don't even know if she'll move in with you."

"We don't need you to act as mediator, Mother."

"I beg to differ," Martha sniffs. "Clearly, you are both abysmal at being honest with each other. No, Richard, don't protest - you _both_."

When Castle has no response to that, Kate swallows and straightens up.

That's enough. This is enough. They shouldn't need his mother to dictate the terms of their relationship. She wants to dictate terms in the bedroom, let them fight and make up _there._

She pushes back out of the laundry room and into the kitchen once more. Both he and Martha are consummate actors, smoothing right over their conversation with bland and benign looks. Castle is drying his hands on a dish towel, Martha is pouring another glass of wine.

Kate's not fooled. Martha thinks she has to stick around to negotiate between them? No. She's done with that.

"I didn't want you to come," she says quickly. Let them both hear, let Martha be certain of her. "Because pain has always been private."

His face goes comically, terribly blank. Whatever interpretation he's putting on her statement, it's not good.

"My mother is dead," she says badly. So badly. She really is terrible at talking, but she has to. "And now I've got to find a way to tell my dad - to tell my dad that I've gone on without her. It's bad enough that I haven't given her justice, but now I'm leaving her behind."

Castle's hands drop, the dish towel collapsing to the floor like a sad ghost.

Not even Martha has something to say to that.

"And I don't know how he'll take it. He never - remarried, never looked, never - he loved her, and I'm not only ditching her, I'm going to drag him with me because now there's a baby too. I'm making him abandon her. Because he'll be a grandfather and she won't get to be a grandmother-"

Castle's face goes white. "Oh, God-"

But it's Martha who wraps her up, boney-armed and wiry-strengthed, rocking her back and forth a little in the kitchen. "Darling, darling, no. It's not that at all. I can promise you, as a mother, it's not that at all."

But it is.

Kate detaches herself as tactfully as she can, her eyes on Castle. He still hasn't found his words. That's okay, at least he gets it now.

"I just don't want you going in there with this whole agenda, Castle, when all I'm trying to do is keep my dad together."

Castle is the one who removes Martha, practically picking her up and depositing her to one side. He places his hands on Kate's shoulders, dipping his head to meet her eyes. He's very serious. "I bet that you'll find your dad has a lot of practice at keeping himself together on his own, Kate. But if he doesn't, I won't do anything to rock his boat. I will do everything I can to help you - save him again, if that's what has to be done."

Kate lets out a shaky breath, nodding back to him. His hands drop from her shoulders and slide down to capture her fingers, tangling.

"I want to be there, to explain - if that's necessary - to back you up, to maybe give you the words you can't find."

Her lips twitch.

His do too.

"I know I'll be fine on my own," she tells him. "But I think - it would be right to have my partner there."

He beams back at her, drawing her in for a hug.

Which Martha interrupts, clapping her hands together. "See? Such progress. Aren't you glad I'm here, darling?"

Castle's smile spoils, and Kate frowns, trying to hide it against his shoulder.

"This is getting ridiculous," he mutters softly into her ear.

"Yes, it is. Pack a bag, Castle," she says fiercely. As if anyone would stop her. As if Martha might stop her. "I'm taking you home."

**X**


	30. Chapter 30

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

He stands in his closet once more, wading through clothes he has no use for, no understanding of, with Kate Beckett smirking before him.

"Do you need help?" she says. Coy. She's being coy. Did he ever in his wildest dreams expect this? Oh, in his fantasies, sure, but that's what a fantasy is - unreal.

This is very real.

Forget packing.

Castle reaches out and cups her jaw, draws them together with the force of his want. She tries to laugh but his mouth is on hers and instead it just parts her lips for him and he kisses her, he kisses her, he finds himself artless when he does.

Her arms wind around his neck and it causes her body to rise against his, friction so lovely he groans. He's bent in half over her and she's stretching up on her toes and he wants more of this, this intimate press of skins, this slide of bodies, until they burst into flame.

Her hands grip his ears and pull his face away; he's left stunned and hungry for her mouth, focused on that smudged line of her lips and the way her knowing grin is ruined by breathlessness.

"Pack," she says. Her voice is husky. Aroused. She wants him too, but she apparently still has words.

"Pack," he repeats. He has no concept of it. Why can't they just-

"I have no idea what you'll need, Rick," she says softly. "You have a lot of product."

"Product?" he squeaks. _Toys_ pops in his head and now she blushes furiously - oh wow, Beckett blushing, that is so incongruous - and she tweaks his ear with her fingers which should say, _no, you idiot,_ but it doesn't at all.

It says, _oh you know it_.

He swallows hard and his head nods on his neck and he can't breathe quite as well as he was - was he ever breathing around her? - and she smooths her fingers down his jaw and flirts with his adam's apple even as it bobs.

"Castle," she prompts.

"Pack. Yes. Pack." There is a duffle bag on the shelf at his side, open and ready. He managed one t-shirt (thinking he wants to see her in that one too) and a pair of boxers. There should probably be more.

"Are you okay with this?" she says suddenly. "I'm kind of hijacking you."

"Hijack away," he says earnestly, sliding his arms around her waist. Loose enough that she could slip out if she wants. "I think you have fantastic ideas."

"I'm just tired of being interrupted and - caught off guard by all the things I haven't had the time to _think_ about, let alone make decisions. You know?"

"I definitely know."

She shifts in his arms, but it's not to get away. She's just squirming, as if she can't find a good place to stand. "I'm a deliberate person until I've made up my mind. And then I just go for it, everything else be damned-"

"I really like that about you," he grins, hoping for smooth, afraid he's only managed sappy.

"But it's difficult to just - go for it - when we're so... crowded."

"Yeah," he sighs.

"And I know your mother is right-"

"Rarely."

"-about us needing to have a real conversation-"

"You heard that?" he tenses.

"But Rick, this isn't the time for serious and sober and practical. I have done practical to _death_ and I am so sick of holding back and not - and not - not having you because I'm letting serious things get in the way."

Castle draws his arms tighter and steps into her troubled space, tugging just firmly enough to bring her against him. Oh, how she fits. She presses into him with a long sigh, her cheek brushing his jaw. He loves holding her, being able to hold her; just a few weeks ago, he remembers seeing her walk into the break room with her shoulders at her ears and her back stiff and just longing, so badly, to follow her in there and wrap himself around her.

Hold her up long enough for her to find her feet again.

When he thinks about that day, and how she maybe already loved him - she did love him, she does; why is that so hard to convince himself of? - and already pregnant and maybe she guessed it, and he was in the middle of gearing himself up to confess everything, lay his heart at her feet and drop to his knees before her - when he thinks of that day, he desperately wishes he had.

Just to have gotten the chance to hold her like this.

"I'm okay," she says roughly. And that's when he first realizes she's not exactly okay, she's as emotional as he is, and maybe it's pregnancy hormones or the news itself, the aftershocks of it, but she's in this just as much as he is. And she's scared when she thinks about it too much, and probably excited too based on those grins she shoots his way when she thinks he's not looking, and it's too much for tonight.

"I'm with you," he tells her, his lips near her ear. "I'm with you on this one. Serious and practical will come soon enough - and quickly. Give me tonight, Kate. Give us tonight. Forget all the issues about our families and our living arrangements and doctor's appointments-"

"Stop listing all the things I'm supposed to be forgetting," she growls.

Castle laughs, loosening his grip on her with the release of that feeling - light, caught unawares by her unexpected humor. "You're right. I could, instead, list all of the things I want to do to you with my mouth."

"Oh."

"Starting here." His tongue touches the skin just below her ear, at her neck where her pulse has begun to thrum. He scrapes his teeth there. "Taste you."

"_Oh, God_."

She's both clutching his arms and leaning away from him, apparently can't make up her mind, and he allows himself the slow, unhurried time to seduce her neck.

Kate whimpers, but the noise grows more fierce, lifts into one of those growls, and her fists clutch in his shirt. He's going to have wrinkles. He's never going to get rid of them; he'll want them for a memento forever.

"Much as - oh - I love this, gonna have - have to stop," she pants at his ear. No authority whatsoever. Just how undone can he make her? Just how mewling and trembling and in his thrall? He wants her naked. On the bed, body rising up for him. He wants to tease all night long.

He loves this t-shirt. Loves riding his fingers under the hem and skimming her bare skin, loves feeling the flinch and flutter of her abs as he strokes the backs of his hands against her.

"Oh, God, Rick," she moans.

He flirts with the slim button of her dress pants, she angles her mouth into his and sucks at his bottom lip, urgent. But he can't be deterred, distracted. He draws a line up to her belly button and circles.

Her hips buck against his touch.

"Will you just-" she pants. Her mouth glides against his, down his jaw, a lazy franticness that he finds shockingly arousing. She can drag her lips, slow and hot, in a kind of endless kiss, but she's whining like it's already rough and hard.

"Kate, please."

He can barely breathe for touching her. For her mouth open against his skin, over his neck. His fingers are desperate to slide somewhere hot and-

"Pack."

She forces herself off of him, even clutching handfuls of his shirt. Her eyes are wide and dark as the whole universe, everything in him existing within that space.

"Pack."

He can't understand what she's saying.

"Damn it, Castle. I will drag you home with _nothing_. Find some pants or - or - whatever it is you have to have for tomorrow and come _on_."

"Tomorrow," he echoes, blinded by the blurred haze of her mouth, aroused and desperate, speaking.

"Lunch with - with my dad."

"Oh," he croaks, and that does it. That just - cold showers him quite effectively. "Lunch with your dad."

Kate releases his shirt and raises a shaky hand to comb through her hair, holding it back on the top of her head, closing her eyes. "I am _not_ willing to do this in your closet. Bad enough our first time was in a damn hotel room."

"Bad?" he gets out.

Her eyes flash open. Her mouth parts. A breath through her lungs that makes her chest expand in such an appealing way with that arm raised. Heaving fantasy.

"Good. Tawdry," she says. Her hand releases her hair and comes out to coast his chest. "Hot. That's the private story. That's for us alone."

"And tonight?"

She tilts her head and takes another step into him, traces the line of his hip with a finger, inwardly. "That's private too, Rick Castle."

He captures her wrist and brings her hand against his chest, lets her feel the pulse of his heart so she knows where else it beats, just as hard. "I'll have you know - it will be just as hot, just as tawdry. There will be _no _story you can tell, Kate Beckett. Not a single word."

**X**


	31. Chapter 31

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

She has her fingers tangled with his, ignoring his mother because Martha makes her nervous and somehow ashamed even as she's proud of herself for doing this at all. Martha is nothing but gracious, if rather nosy and loud, and Kate has only been treated kindly, but she's absconding with the woman's son for - for - well everyone knows exactly what it's for.

Still she keeps this loose tangle of their hands, knowing he can feel her heart beat hard between their fingers, the base of her wrist. His thumb does this sweeping circle in the cup of her palm that makes her absolutely lose herself, gone. It's not like this is their first night together; it's not like she doesn't know exactly how he feels, this feels, the intimate press of bodies and the attention he pays, such close attention, and yet she's having trouble breathing for all the imagining she keeps doing.

Her thoughts are scattered, hopelessly, no chance of gathering them back together.

He has a bag over his shoulder, kissing his mother's cheek as Martha flutters around them, _good luck_ and _don't worry_ and what is it Kate shouldn't be worrying about? She is anyway. Her anxiety gnaws a hole in her stomach where all her giddiness just slides around in her guts and makes her want to throw up.

This is where it starts. For real. This isn't a hotel room one night in selfish memory. This might be just as tawdry, but it's for keeps. They're going to have a baby, and Kate is very good at doing this wrong, and tonight has to go so very right. So right. Not just for her, but for the little thing who deserves parents who get along.

At least the body is a different, easier kind of language. This is what she's good at - actions. Speak louder, they say, and she does too. She's unable to _stop _saying, every time she gets close to him. It's a constant, non-stop chatter she's doing, just by holding his hand, bumping his shoulder, nudging hips, letting herself smile at him. Hell, she can use her mouth all night if it's like this, no problem.

Oh, that's crude.

And seriously erotic. Her _mouth_. And not for smiling, though she's burning with that too, lips spread. She really has to - she cannot be having these kinds of pictures in her head while Martha kisses her cheek and winks at them.

Castle rumbles something about saying good-night to Alexis (oh, no, Kate entirely forgot that Castle likes to be available in the mornings for his daughter before school), but now he's tugging on her fingers and pulling her out the door.

"In a hurry?" she says, but the effect is ruined by her absolute urgency.

"Hell, yes," he mutters. He's taking full-length strides down the hallway to the elevator, not even bothering to see if she can keep up (she can, of course; she will always keep up), and he jabs the call button viciously. Repeatedly. A tattoo that mimics her heart's desperate pounding.

She can't keep the grin off her face. They're getting out of here; they're _free_. He looks ready to do physical harm to the elevator if it doesn't hurry up, scowling and fierce. Warrior Castle, rather than Writer Castle, and while she's daydreamed about the man with all the beautiful, arousing words, she never quite imagined this.

The man who will fight. Take. Battle her. He has been waiting and now he is _done_.

Her pulse skitters in her veins, racing and slowing, unable to keep pace, and then the elevator doors slide open. Subtle teak interior, chrome facings, swanky in its details but classy in its tone.

Oh, God, why does she care about the minutiae of his elevator? She only cares about the way he yanks her inside and stabs at the lobby button, the way his hands come back to claim her waist as if her hips have vacancy signs.

He growls and shoves her against that teak panel, presses his body into hers as he devours her mouth. Devours her mouth. Insanity. She grips his shirt, not breathing, and he has definitely done away with waiting. Kate moans at his invasion, hooks an ankle around his calf to draw herself closer, opening her-

The elevator jerks and dings as it opens. Castle's forehead crashes into hers with a curse, his chest like a great bellows, heaving breath, one of his hands fisted in her hair (when did that happen?) and gripping her tightly to him. Keeping her in place.

"Gotta get off," he husks.

"I _know_," she growls. "Soon. Damn it. Very soon, Castle. I've had enough foreplay."

He jerks back, gaping, and she realizes he _didn't_ mean it like that, but at least she can keep him guessing. At least she can leave him wordless. And turned on, oh yes, there is that, and his mouth opens and closes and the doors stutter and begin to shut again.

He shoots out an arm and catches them, never taking his eyes off of her.

A throat-clearing over Castle's shoulder makes them both snap to attention, straightening clothes (how in the world did he already unbutton her pants?), and then they attempt a graceful disembarking past the older man in his narrow black tie who gives them only a condescending smirk.

Graceful is not quite the word for it. Heart-swallowing is what she's doing. Repeatedly.

His hand is so wide around hers, pressing apart her fingers where they lace together.

"Castle, I love you," she blurts out. Her heart soars; its own freedom.

He turns violently and pins her against the wall of his lobby, fierce. "You can't say things like that to me right now. Or we won't make it to your place."

**X**


	32. Chapter 32

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Tonight, Rick Castle is a man of action.

Well, small amendment: right this moment he is a man of action. He has Beckett by the hand, walking briskly out of his building, and she's not even being dragged - she's just as eager - and they're doing this. He feels very good about his decisiveness, his urgent _now_, until he gets to the sidewalk and realizes he has no idea about transportation.

His plan is dust. The subway would be too cruel. He couldn't possibly lean close to her on a crowded line, smelling her hair and faintly feeling the heat of her skin, and make it out alive. But he left the keys to his own car upstairs.

This suddenly feels destined for failure. They cannot catch a break.

"Did you drive?" he asks, jerking his head around to her. He hears himself, he does, the growl in his voice that might be the leading edge of his anger.

He's almost stunned to recognize that it is - actually - latent anger. He's actually not that much a man of action - not until Beckett and police chases and staring down killers - but more importantly, he's not personally. He lets things slide and is pretty laidback and goes with the flow, smiling all the way.

Not now. A lot of mess could have been avoided if only there was a damn note where it was supposed to be. If they didn't speak in subtext. If her-

"Castle," she snaps.

He hasn't been listening. She's holding up her keys, dangling them in front of his face as she tries to shove him down the sidewalk. Literally shove. She's put real muscle behind it; she's trying to propel him forward.

"Good," he says, clipped, still tightly angry. Arousal and anger like winding together like DNA; they feed each other so that the harder the knot in his throat the more he _wants_ her. Because she - she - did all this and he was only trying to pathetically go with the flow and passively wait, but she did this.

He leads, he doesn't follow, even though he has no idea where she's parked the car. No. No more following. He strides down the block at a fast pace, but she's effortlessly keeping up with him, just enough at his side so that the slightest angle of her body wordlessly communicates the direction and he finds her car after they jaywalk across the street.

He's not driving, but he's _driving_ \- in the driver's seat, so to speak, and it feels deeply satisfying. It both fuels his anger and soothes the wound made by lies and silence, though her lie was really just a manner of sidestepping, avoiding the truth. He's done that enough himself that the anger feels unwarranted, and the guilt eats away and bubbles angrily up his throat again.

She remote unlocks the doors and they separate at the back of the car to get in; he hates losing her hand, feels sick to his stomach when he touches the cold metal of the door handle. He slides into the passenger seat with a heart made heavy by a sudden and profound inevitability.

It will be like this from now on. They won't change; they'll just get better at fighting each other, more crafty at it, her evasions will be more elaborate, his hurt will be more melodramatic, until-

"I don't like that look on your face," she says, turning the engine over with the key. She spares him a glance as she head-checks the traffic, and then she smoothly pulls out into the street. It takes a matter of moments, and she drives like a cop, alternately breaking the law and mildly annoyingly following it precisely.

"What look?"

"Sour." Her right hand leaves the wheel and reaches out, hovers in the gap between them, a sad and desperate thing, a gesture that reeks of futility. "Stop that. Please?"

The plea unmakes him. The demands he takes every day, has grown inured to her authority (somewhat). But that question at the end of it, that hope.

He takes her hand gently, his big paw closing over hers and dwarfing it - how strange that her hand is so thin and strong and overmatched by his own. He never thought of that before. Not even that night, when they danced too close at Ryan's wedding and he held her against his heart, not even then did he notice just how capably unfit their hands are together.

"You're angry with me," she says. Her fingers are wriggling, trapped by his hand, and she works them between his own, squeezing. "That's the look you've had for weeks. Have we not - I can apologize as often as you need until-"

"I'm angry," he sighs, leaning his head back against the seat. "But it seems as if being turned on goes hand in hand with wanting to strangle you."

She lets out a laughing little breath. "I've never been into that, but we'll see."

Well, _hell_. That shocks the anger right out of him.

"Rick?" A tentative sound, his name on her lips. She's shooting fast glances his way, her eyes troubled, filled up with it. She's nervous. Of them. For them. She's nervous.

That's not what he expected. Sexy confidence has all she's allowed him to see.

"I-" When he croaks, he has to clear his throat, try again. "Anything you want to do, I'm - willing. Wow. I didn't think this would be the conversation we'd be having right now."

"No?" Some of that confidence has returned, but her grip on his hand is telling: she clutches him like she's drowning.

"Not a whole lot of talking that first night," he says. "Well, you already knew my safe word. No need to talk, right?"

"That's too bad," she sighs. "Maybe we wouldn't have wasted so much time if we had."

"You left a note," he reminds her, though it sounds as weak coming out of his mouth as it did hers earlier tonight.

She chews on the corner of her lip; she looks... He's a writer, a wordsmith, and all he can come up with is very sad. The deep kind, drawing from a well of it that Kate always seems to have on hand. Very sad.

Her grief is one grief, and it levels her out, seeks equilibrium within her, filling her every crack. These tonight, these fault lines in her being, he thinks they're due to him, and that old grief settles so well.

It's the wound he saw in her eyes that first case he consulted with the NYPD, the 'neat trick' he played, reading her life's story there. It wasn't a trick; it's just that Kate Beckett holds on to so much that it leaves high-water marks, evidence of her feelings for anyone to read if only they know how.

Why does he know how?

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I have been selfish. All this time. And I'm doing it again, tonight, taking you home. But I can't stop now. It would kill me to stop-"

"No, don't," he breathes. "It's not selfish to want - _us._ I want us. I want us _alone_."

She gives a faltering laugh, and he can see her take a deep breath again. Was she holding it? Is there still that much uncertainty?

His mother said they ought to be talking, that conversations needed to happen. He couldn't focus on the trajectory of their relationship; he just wanted to get Kate alone.

They're alone now, but she's driving them to her place, and there's time to say a few things.

"I'm angry, yes," he starts, keeping himself calm. "You're a frustrating woman." He lifts her hand with his and lightly dusts a kiss over her knuckles. He can see her shiver. From the kiss or from his honesty? "I'm sure given enough time, together, you could say the same of me."

"You're a frustrating woman?" she quips.

"Funny," he says, smiling. She doesn't turn her head to look, but he knows she knows it's there. "You keep me sharp, Beckett, that's for sure."

"I hope that's a good thing," she says. Her voice is so light, almost insubstantial. He scared her. That's what this is - he scared her these last few weeks and she was like a rabbit, frozen and caught out. Doing _nothing_ is her default reaction to emotional fright; she froze.

He thought it was worse than it really was. He thought the worst when she did nothing. He doesn't understand, instinctively, how nothing can be good when it comes to love. But that's not what it was for her. Nothing was a clear response that she wanted more - so much more - that it overwhelmed her and shut her down.

"It's a good thing," he says finally.

"You really had to think about it," she chuffs. Teasing but not teasing.

"Well, that deserved a thoughtful answer," he says. "So you know it's not just something I tossed off. I talk a lot, words are my thing, but I'm not sure you believe half of them." He squeezes her hand. "CIA conspiracies do exist, you know."

Kate laughs at that, a sound like relief and honest amusement. "So that's what we're doing? Building theory about - about us?"

"Yes. And you know I'm usually right."

She snorts, but her eyes dart to his. "Alien abduction aside, sometimes... you are right."

"Was that so hard?" he grins.

"Yes."

Yes, he thinks it really was.

**X**


	33. Chapter 33

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Parking the car - nearly two blocks away after circling twice, her anxiety rising - and then getting out, watching Castle shift his bag on his shoulder, and then taking his hand, really the whole process of arriving has left her both aching and overwhelmed.

Filled and empty, paradoxically at the same time.

The nearness of his body-

She tries to savor it, everything, each gesture and the cadence of his walk towards her building, the way the street light golds his hair, the crisp scent of sidewalk and his aftershave mingling together. Tonight is different from all other nights, even from that one night in a hotel, because tonight it begins.

She doesn't want to miss it.

Not that she could miss - well, that, no. But.

She's afraid she'll miss something. Something important. She'll let something slip unnoticed and lose the whole meaning of their plot, forget her place in the narrative, find an ending before they've started. If he doesn't like what she - like it, like her?

What does she do then?

Kate's hand is shaking when she tries to unlock the front door. Such a stupid thing, how cliche, but this is everything, tonight. Everything. So much everything that her fingers feel unwieldy.

She finally shoves open the security door and Castle follows her inside the narrow lobby, moves past her for the stairs, taking her hand with the key ring tangled in her fingers. Does the trick, stilling her shaking, grounding her once more.

But it also starts that electric current between them, the humming buzz of their connection, and she is aware of him in a way that encompasses the whole world, her senses blown wide.

She wants him so badly. She's been carrying it inside like a secret, lighting her up and keeping her warm this winter. And then these last few weeks, she was carrying it like a knot in her throat, a tightness she couldn't swallow past, the need for a deep breath that would never come.

But now.

It's a clamoring in her head, drowning out her own voice, it's a pounding in her heart, demanding and urgent.

It's the future, but it's being revealed to her in clear strokes, definite and concrete, something she doesn't have to simply believe in any longer, the two of them, because it's reality. It's love given flesh and breath and she's carrying it too.

She loves him. She didn't mean to, but she wouldn't - couldn't - wish it away, doesn't want to ever not have it now that she _has_. And even if he - even if he doesn't - the baby will always be the best parts of loving him. It's scary and it's real and it's coming whether she's ready or not, but that just means she will always be able to cup that face in her hands and say _I love you_ no matter what happens.

In her hallway, she blurts it out before she knows she's going to speak. "There's no after for me. After us. There's nothing after us. I can't-"

Castle turns, a whole body turn, as if he's orienting to her. "There was never going to be an _after_." His lips twitch, some of that furious certainty is softened. "Unless you mean the morning after. There will be that. You owe me a morning after, Kate Beckett."

She can suddenly breathe again, and now her terrible awareness recedes into a shared anticipation - to be, to love. She twines her arm through his and strides down the hall, their steps in sync, and her shakes completely gone.

It's the easiest thing in the world to open her front door and lead him inside.

**X**

Castle drops his overnight bag on the floor and doesn't even look at it, just kicks it to one side. That move must look funny, because Kate laughs and presses her hands to her cheeks - they've flushed, the pink going all the way down her throat (and where else? how far down?) - and he grins back, glad he's eased the tension.

All good tension, of course, very good. He likes that, loves even more the way she keeps blurting out what's on her mind, _I love you, there's no after us for me._ There has been a dearth of real words between them this past year, and now that they've started talking, neither of them seem to be able to turn it off.

He's very okay with that.

He wants her plenty vocal tonight.

She must be able to see it on his face because her eyes grow as dusky as nightfall, stars in her irises, and she's launching herself at him. His back hits the door and he catches her shoulders, drags her as close as he can have her while her mouth devours him. He pushes back into her kiss, tonguing the swell of her bottom lip and then inside, and she moans.

The noises she makes. God.

He fists her shirt and rucks up the material with both hands, yanking at the thin cotton he let her borrow. And then he's pressing his palms intently against the hot skin stretched taut over her rib cage, measuring the whole gorgeous framework of her body. She grunts something, a command or direction, but he misses it, moves instead to pull the shirt over her head.

Her hair is a halo around her face for an instant, her eyes heavy but _purposeful_, and then she's working on the button of his pants.

Castle curses under his breath - what breath? - and pulls her back against him, hips to hips just to slow her down (he'll never last). She whines in the back of her throat but the kiss grows intentional, slowing, consuming, little pauses where they rest mouth to mouth, her breathing fast as his own echoes. Lips barely touch lips. Her nose nudges his. She kisses him again; he can hear the wet parting as they break apart, staring at each other.

He feels drugged with her.

He spans her sides with his hands and skates up her ribs to cup her breasts. Kate lets out a sound and rocks into him, a full body arch that leaves his mouth dry, his heart pounding in his fingers.

He coasts to her back, pressing open the clasp of her bra at her spine. She draws in her shoulders as if to do the work herself, but he drags his mouth to her neck and then to the strap of her bra, sucking lightly at the marks left in her skin.

She wasn't wearing a bra that night in the hotel. It was all sudden and startling glory, and he's deeply involved in tonight's slow reveal. The black material shimmers under his fingers.

"Castle," she whispers.

He lifts his gaze to meet her eyes. Her arm comes around his neck, cradling his head, fingers in his hair. Her other hand works at his pants again, but he has a goal in mind and he likes distracting her. He slides a thumb under her bra strap and drags it over her shoulder, down her arm; goose bumps break out in the wake of his touch, and a shiver goes up her spine.

He kisses the slope of her breast and spans the narrowest part of her torso, lifts both hands to remove her bra.

Kate lets it fall, and then from her fingertips.

His every breath is labored.

"Now you," she says, flicking those fingers at him.

Castle lifts his shirt up and over his head, tosses it away, reaches in for her. Kate's fingers hook in the waist of his pants - God, the feel of her fingers against his stomach is electric - and then she's pressed against him, chest to chest, the heat and raw friction of naked skin.

Her mouth touches a wet kiss to his throat. Her voice is silk. "Come to bed."

**X**


	34. Final Chapter

**Misconception**

* * *

**X**

Kate doesn't fall asleep.

Her eyes are heavy, and her body is warm and tired and sore, but she can't possibly sleep. Not when Castle lies beside her.

She curls on her side and watches the rise of his bare chest as he breathes, that deep and slow movement of slumber. His hair is flopped low, touching his eyebrows, and his nose and chin jut strongly. She snakes a hand out to brush two fingers over the soft hair at his forearm.

He wakes and turns into her, a groan of her name, and without hesitation, she's taking him inside her and going slow, finally, moving together and no longer against each other. Not frantic but sweet, intimate.

There's something secret and beautiful about the darkness in the room and heat of her skin melding to his, the sound of him meeting her, the rush of her heartbeat in her head.

After, when she untangles and falls back to the mattress, his arm slides around her waist and between her thighs and it's strange and new and it's Castle against her side and laying his head on her shoulder. His lips brushing a sigh of a kiss at her skin.

She still doesn't sleep. Can't possibly. Won't.

She daydreams staring at the ceiling, daydreams and finds herself stroking her fingers through his hair and breathing through her mouth to settle down, flushed, filled, happy.

Happy enough, happy too much, and she tugs on the short hair between her fingers, grips the back of his neck until he grunts and squints one eye awake.

"Again," she says, urgent. A grin suffuses his face - predatory and pleased with himself - as Castle climbs up her body and presses her down. His fingers lace through hers and drag her arms over her head, and when he's not paying attention - or well, paying attention in a different way - she flips them.

Castle lets out a laughing breath; he looks tamed under her like this. She drags herself upright, drawing his hands down to the wide expanse of his own rib cage, their fingers still tangled, until he's palming her thighs.

Their hands loosen. He's not laughing now. Staring. His eyes are star-shot blue, and she grinds her hips down to blow out his pupils.

Castle groans, gripping her, and this time, this time, it's her turn to get creative.

**X**

Kate carefully folds back the sheet, shifts her legs out of bed. Her toes touch the cold floor, the wood smooth, and it's like every old thing in her apartment is somehow new. The wood floors, the worn rug, the street lights coming in through the window, the shadows made from the chair, the wardrobe - made new by his sleeping form in her bed.

That's definitely new, and it's not just her own life turned inside out. Castle, lying on his back, hair mussed where she grabbed at his ears and pulled him up, his mouth smudged. She leans in over him, reaches out to smooth down what's sticking up, and she can't help putting her nose in against his cheek.

He smells like a muskier version of himself. A sex-soaked version. It makes her whole body heat.

She leaves a kiss at the corner of his mouth.

Kate stands and carefully draws the sheet over him, and then she turns and pads naked out of the bedroom, down the hall. Her skin ripples with the chill coming in from the windows. The moon is still up, though sinking fast as morning approaches, and it looks pale-white pregnant as it begins to fade.

_Makes two of us._

She finds his t-shirt in the living room and shrugs it on over her head - his t-shirt, and not the one he picked out for her, but the one he wore over here. It smells like that deeper, richer scent, smells like arousal and urgency and male.

Kate runs her fingers through her hair to work on the tangles where he played with it, and she moves into the kitchen to start some coffee. She's going to make him a cup. She feels expectant and full, and it's not just sex - it could never be, really, with him, _just _sex - but it's also not just finally having him.

It's having his vision. His - dream of them, like a story he's been telling. She's caught it. For good. For keeps. It's the only story she wants.

She measures out the coffee grounds in her normal, boring coffeemaker, fingering the filter to be sure she's only grabbed one. The familiar motions. She adds the water and nestles the carafe on the hot plate and presses the button.

And for a moment there's that silence where the coffeemaker seems to be doing nothing at all, and Kate can hear the morning creaking around her as it reluctantly shambles in, grey and weak. It's the time where things can fall apart, where the pale light makes known last night's mistakes, where the coffee maker might never actually begin.

She holds her breath.

And then the black plastic contraption gurgles and hisses, errant water bubbling on the hot plate and disappearing, the carafe settling as the coffeemaker pops and begins to percolate.

Kate leans her elbows onto the counter and stares through the window to the city outside, watching it wake and stretch off a long night. The sky washes out, a worn-out blue, the moon can't hang on to its place.

A star still stays. Close to where the moon is beginning to lose it. A star or maybe that's the light of a planet; astronomy was freshman year of college and she only remembers pieces of the night sky, Orion's belt and the Big Dipper.

The coffeemaker begins to slow, and Kate lifts from the counter to gather mugs, the half-and-half from the fridge. She hunts for sugar, finds three little packets from some takeout place, and she places everything before her.

She fixes his coffee just as he likes it, unwilling to deviate in the slightest from his usual, just in case the morning hits him wrong, in case awkwardness shows up. She's not this good a morning person, usually, so she has no idea if he'll wake up surly or talkative or-

But she'll find out. She'll know. Over time, they'll both know.

She carries both of their mugs back to her bedroom and finds Castle sitting bolt upright, looking stunned. The sheet has pooled around his waist and she comes slowly to the foot of the bed, watching the coffee to be sure she doesn't spill, finding small moments to dart her eyes to him.

He can't seem to find words.

"Hi," she says softly, holding out a mug to him.

Castle leans forward and takes it, his mouth spreading a smile out across his face so hesitant, so - happy. "Hey." Rough, raw morning voice. Makes her stomach clench.

He takes a sip and then a longer swallow, and his eyes follow her as she moves to the side of the bed and sits gingerly on the mattress. She pulls one knee up for balance and his eyes follow that too.

He puts aside his coffee mug - settling it on the nightstand - and he brings his hands to her ankle and the hem of the shirt, the backs of his fingers brushing the top of her thigh.

"You're wearing my shirt. I thought I gave you one of your own." But he's smiling, even in his eyes, crinkled in the corners so that she has to lift a hand and run her fingers over the crow's feet.

He turns his head and kisses the heel of her hand.

"I warned you I'd be stealing yours," she says. "And you're supposed to say it looks better on me."

"It doesn't," he answers, shaking his head. She stiffens, but he catches her wrist and tugs her in closer, taking the coffee mug from her hand and placing it beside his own. "It doesn't look better on you - it looks better off."

Kate laughs, and then he finds the hem again and pulls it right over her head.

His grin is infectious.

She comes up on her knees and lets herself fall into him, toppling him back to the mattress so that she lands on top of him.

Castle is chuckling now too, and they're grinning at each other and tracing what they can see with eyes not used to seeing - so much, so freely, so close.

He strokes his hands up her back and cradles her face, cranes his neck to kiss her.

She never thought it would be like this. Never thought it could.

**X**


End file.
